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UNI student teachers visit Charles City Innovative Campus

UNI student teachers visit Charles City Innovative Campus
Student teachers from the University of Northern Iowa, in foreground, talk with Charles City High School and Middle School members of Project RISE about ways to relate to students. In back are Dan Caffrey, the juvenile court-school liaison and at-risk coordinator, and Karleen Sickman, Success Center teacher. Press photo by Bob Steenson
UNI student teachers visit Charles City Innovative Campus
Julie Molstead, Innovative Campus administrative support, seated at the table, talks with student teachers from the University of Northern Iowa Monday at Charles City School District’s Innovative Campus at First Congregational Church. Press photo by Bob Steenson
By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Not all students are the same and they don’t all learn the same way.

Twenty-four future teachers from the University of Northern Iowa spent Monday in Charles City at the local school district’s Innovative Campus, having conversations with students and with Charles City instructors and getting real-life examples of the variety of student backgrounds, needs and reactions they will likely encounter in their chosen career.

UNI student teachers visit Charles City Innovative Campus
Kady Korbel, student teacher coordinator at the University of Northern Iowa, talks about her goals in bringing a couple of dozen UNI education students to the Charles City Innovative Campus Monday. Press photo by Bob Steenson

Kady Korbel is a student teacher coordinator for UNI, overseeing student teachers across 15 school districts in the north central region of the state. She is also a former Charles City High School teacher, having taught here from 2004 to 2012.

“About five years ago when I took over the student teaching job, I really was trying to find ways to give my students real-life situations that they would deal with in the classroom,” Korbel told the Press Monday.

“I used to work with at-risk students when I taught at the high school and so I reached out to some of my former colleagues,” she said. “I knew that sometimes kids come from different backgrounds and we need to teach them differently than we would the standard child in education.”

Korbel said it started with the local staff selecting a couple of students who would tell their stories, about how they struggled in school, why they had a hard time working with teachers, why they had a hard time with mainstream education.

And they would also tell how they were able to connect with certain people and what brought them back into wanting “to be a little bit more successful than the road they were going down.”

“I have an amazing group of student teachers and they have a lot of passion for what they want to do,” she said, but she wants her students to see that who they teach may be nothing like them.

“We need to figure out why students are behaving they way they are behaving. It’s not about us, it’s not about the behavior, but it’s about what’s causing that behavior,” Korbel said.

UNI student teachers visit Charles City Innovative Campus
The Charles City School District’s Innovative Campus, located at the First Congregational Church, includes the Carrie Lane High School, FLEX programming and the Home School Assistance Program. Press photo by Bob Steenson

Every semester now she organizes the visits with local teachers who pick out students who can be great speakers to give her student-teachers real-life examples of the students that they might be working with in the future.

“Whether it’s preschool or 12th grade, they’re going to see some of these kids and they’re not going to always understand why the behavior is the way it is,” Korbel said. “It’s just raw, real, vulnerable conversations with a variety of different students with a variety of different backgrounds.”

The sessions Monday were held at the Innovative Campus located at the Congregational Church. Middle school and high school members of Project RISE, a student leadership program, also talked with the student-teachers. RISE stands for Respect, Integrity, Strength and Empowerment.

The Innovative Campus is a new program in the school district this year that in part came out of some of the experiences teaching during the pandemic, and that brings together several non-mainstream ways of delivering an education, including the Carrie Lane High School alternative program, School to You remote learning and the Home School Assistance Program.

Larry Wolfe is the Innovative Campus principal. He was previously the co-principal at the high school.

Wolfe called the Innovative Campus the “missing link” that was needed to meld a lot of the district’s resources together.

“The whole innovative side of it allows the virtual and the Carrie Lane and the HSAP (Home School Assistance Program) all to be under one umbrella. They have a lot of commonalities and are working toward the same goals,” he told he Press.

Korbel said her student teachers need to understand that not all kids learn and respond the same way, and she hoped the visit to Charles City Monday helped them see that.

“We need to figure out the best way to help all students, that mainstream education isn’t for everybody, but it doesn’t mean that they’re not going to be successful,” she said.

“We need to learn what students’ skills are and enhance those skills, but the biggest thing is just understanding that, if we see behavior issues, whether it’s fighting, silence, sleeping, anger, aggression, we need to dig into what’s behind those and find out why,” Korbel said.

“It’s not about us. It’s not they’re lashing out toward us because they’re mad at us, but typically there’s a behind-the-scenes issue and to look into it — to be that person who cares.”

 

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