By Audrey Ryan, Student Guest Writer from Louisa County High School

Teachers for Tomorrow (TFT) is a program that allows high school students to spend time in classrooms—not as students, but as teachers. They gain real-life experience in the education field by planning lessons and interacting with children in the community.

“My goals for my students in TFT are to learn the basics of teaching and to apply those methods within the real-world settings of Little Lions Learning Lab and Thomas Jefferson Elementary School (TJES),” TFT teacher Marcia Flora wrote in an email. In TFT 1, students visit Little Lions twice a week and Thomas Jefferson Elementary School (TJES) once a week. In TFT 2, they can choose between Louisa County Middle School (LCMS) or Little Lions. At whichever school they choose, they spend four days a week there helping teachers in the classroom they are assigned to at the beginning of the semester. Both classes spend their remaining days in class planning lessons and building their portfolios.

“They create multiple lessons within the semester and actually do them with the Little Lions and their students at TJES,” Flora wrote. “Both groups create a portfolio that will outline and highlight their experiences, observations, and thoughts on what they’ve learned throughout the semester.”

During their visits to Little Lions, TFT students help with breakfast, create lessons and run stations. Senior McKinzie Allison recently led a station on the purpose of Band-Aids.

“I had set up stations where they were decorating their Band-Aid,” Allison said. “Then at the other station, there were some stuffed animals I had brought from home and they were going to put Band-Aids on each stuffed animal so they felt better.”

Four TFT seniors can be chosen as senior interns for Little Lions. The chosen seniors stay at Little Lions for a longer period of time, and they continue to perform the same tasks they did in the TFT class.

“My responsibilities are setting up centers for morning rotations, helping with getting work or activities ready, checking on the kids while they are playing, and playing with those who do not have someone to play with,” senior intern Julia Billings wrote in an email. New this year, LCHS has partnered with Virginia State University so that TFT 1 and 2 are dual-enrollment classes. Students are now able to receive both high school and college credits.

“The field experience my students gain from their time in the Little Lions Learning Lab, TJES, and LCMS is unique, invaluable, real-world exposure to teaching children, and sets the foundation for when they begin to dive deeper into the theoretical understandings of the teaching profession in college,” Flora wrote.

TFT doesn’t just prepare future teachers for life after high school. Senior Mary-Elizabeth Thompson plans on pursuing radiology, and through TFT, she has learned how to work in different environments.
“This class has been good with teaching me how to be more patient with younger kids,” Thompson said. “I have a job right now, but having this setting where it’s more rambunctious, rather than just being around adults, is helpful to teach me not everything is going to be the same.”

Overall, through TFT, students can develop teaching and presentation skills while also connecting with the children and impacting their lives. “I want to teach the kids the way they deserve to be treated,” Allison said. “I would see the happiness in one kid’s eyes, and that would be my million-dollar paycheck. All of these kids are beyond worth the time on any day.”

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