REAL-WORLD LESSONS FOR TEACHERS
Program pairs educators with others in fields similar to subjects they're teaching
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Walt Kleczkowski, turning base terminal manager at the Port of Houston, gives first-year teacher Stephanie Cocce a tour of the port as part of Teacher Externship Week. Cocce, who teaches math at Patrick Henry Middle School in north Houston, said she has learned things she can use in class. NICK de la TORRE: HOUSTON CHRONICLE
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By JEMIMAH NOONOO
Houston Chronicle
Published: June 12, 2008
On a tour through the Port of Houston this week, first-year schoolteachers Tyler Cote and Stephanie Cocce saw tankers filled with biodiesel, rows of 1-ton bags of rice and radiation-detection devices. But beyond the rumbling waters and cargo, they saw geometry and equations they can use when school resumes in August.
"There are a million math problems out there," said Cocce, a math teacher at Patrick Henry Middle School in north Houston.
Cocce and Cote, both 23, are touring the port this week as part of Teacher Externship Week, a project involving Houston A+ Challenge, the Greater Houston Partnership and Taking Education to Work.
Nearly 250 teachers from 18 area school districts are assigned to Houston business professionals in similar fields of study. Other externship sites include Shell Oil, the Johnson Space Center and the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
The number of participants has more than doubled from last year, said Melissa Milios Davis, spokeswoman for Houston A+ Challenge. The program began with six teachers in 2003.
"This is about building stronger connections between the classroom and the work force," Davis said. "This program exposes teachers to current needs of Houston businesses. That is a powerful thing when the teacher stands at the front of the classroom and can say that 'I know you need these skills to succeed in the world today.' "
Cote and Cocce both said students often ask if they will ever use what they learn in class.
"We have students who want to be engineers," said Cote, a science teacher at Patrick Henry. "We have to get them excited about learning or else they will tune us out."
He plans on having students watch a ship's departure from the port next school year, a lesson that will incorporate math and science.
Teacher externs are asked to keep a daily journal and write a report. They will also develop lesson plans based on what they have learned.
Cocce and Cote aren't waiting — the two were sketching equations on napkins at lunch.
"It's nice to be on the other side," Cocce said. "Instead of being the teacher, I'm the student."
