Twenty-six students from the Brownwood chapter of Texas Association of Future Educators (TAFE) attended the TAFE Teach Tomorrow Summit at the Arlington Convention Center and The University of Texas at Arlington, TX, February 16-19.
TAFE is a statewide co-curricular Career and Technical Student Organization created to allow young men and women an opportunity to explore the teaching profession. Attendees to this four-day conference included members of TAFE, which consisted of approximately 1,700 students, interested in becoming educators. The conference gave these students the opportunity to meet others from around the state with the same interest, gain an understanding of what it takes to be a successful college student, and learn the skills necessary for becoming a successful educator. This was the third year to have the annual conference at a university. Having the conference on a university campus opens many more opportunities for our student members.
This year’s conference theme was “Teachers go Beyond the Call of Duty. What’s Your Calling?” The students learned what it takes to accept the call to teaching.
TAFE’s mission is to encourage students to learn about careers in education and assist them in exploring the teaching profession while promoting character, service, and leadership skills necessary for becoming effective educators. The meeting featured a series of breakout sessions and general sessions in which members had opportunities to develop these skills.
While at the conference, many of the members participated in competitive events. The competitive events are designed to offer future educators exciting, authentic opportunities to measure their creativity, skills, and initiative against high standards and against their peers from across the state.
“I believe that this is an opportunity for the students to see everything we do as educators,” said BHS FCS Teacher and TAFE Leader, Mitzi Cockerham. “It gives them a hands on opportunity to create projects that will help them in the classroom as well as prepare them to be involved in the Education and Training field. I am very proud of all these students for taking on a task that has them working on material outside the classroom.”
Students earned the following awards at the summit:
Project Visualize – Appreciation Project
•Raylynn Hill and Kenya Barnes received a blue ribbon for their project titled “TAFE Soda Shop – Float Your Boat”
•Mia Sharp and Madi Arial received a blue ribbon for their project titled “Cooking Up Success”
Teacher Created Material
•Stacey Sanchez and Juanita Saldana received a blue ribbon for their project titled “Playground of Math”
•Tommy Bowden and Torrey Miller received a Blue ribbon for their project titled “Biome-ology”
•Jesse Bennett and Quade Infinger received a red ribbon for their project titled “You Sunk My Periodic Table”
Gold Certification on Portfolios
•Bailey Herring
•Dariela Lares Ibarra
•Hayden Day
Silver Certification on Portfolios
•Maggie Torres
•Madison Burleson
•Jessica Ramirez
Silver Certification on Educational Leadership Fundamentals Contest
•Kaitly Davis
Bronze Certification on Educational Leadership Fundamentals Contest
•Jessica Ramirez
•Karisa McKinney
•Mia Romero
