On Green days, senior Tony Arcangeletti finds himself back in elementary school.
“When I get [to Hickory Point Elementary School], it’s recess time, and it’s so funny because they always fight over me,” said Arcangeletti. “[The girls] always want me to play on the playground. And the boys, they always want to play soccer with me, so that’s my favorite part because I love playing with them at recess. But it’s so funny because they’re always like, ‘It’s a soccer day. It’s playground day.’”
Arcangeletti is enrolled in Glenbrook North’s Teaching Internship course, which allows him to intern as a teacher’s aide alongside Laura Foster, a second-grade teacher at Hickory Point.
During the one-semester course, students are placed in an elementary or junior high classroom as a teacher’s aide. To enroll in this course, students must complete three prerequisite Educational Foundations classes.
Arcangeletti was very nervous to walk into Hickory Point for the first time but was relieved to recognize some of the students from his summer job as a camp counselor, he said.
According to Foster, it was very helpful that Arcangeletti already knew many of the students.
“One of the best things as a teacher is to really have a relationship with the kids,” said Foster. “And he already had that because he knew so many of them. So they really had a respect for him. They had a good rapport with him, and he just jumped right in right away.”
Teacher’s aides lead groups, grade students’ assignments and teach lessons. Foster and Arcangeletti talk in class briefly or correspond via email to prepare lesson plans based on what the students are currently learning.
“We were doing a poetry unit, and so he came up with the idea of teaching them how to write an acrostic poem using their names and then show them how they can use some other words that might be important to them,” Foster said.
Arcangeletti sometimes gets nervous teaching in front of the class because Foster is observing and grading him based on how he is teaching, but Arcangeletti thinks of how he normally acts around the students and tries to be as natural as possible, he said.
Along with creating lesson plans for the class, teacher’s aides receive assignments throughout the semester from Mary Kosirog, instructional supervisor for the Career and Technical Education Department.
“There is work along the way to help them grow to be better teachers,” said Kosirog. “So there’s journals they have to do. They do some interviewing of their teacher, like how they got there, why did they want to be a teacher. They interview the principal to find out about the school, to learn about what principals look for in future teachers.”
According to Arcangeletti, his experience as a teacher’s aide ishelping him prepare for college, where he plans to major in elementary education.
“It’s definitely an awakening because it’s not an easy job,” said Arcangeletti. “But I think it’s gonna be worth it … Some of my favorite teachers were from elementary [school]. I want to be that teacher for kids.”