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Identifying and creating a solution for a real community need is one of Education Professor Chris Burke’s go-to project-based learning assignments in his place-based education course. Students form small groups and then brainstorm ideas, after which they pitch them to the larger group and the class votes on which project they’ll work on that semester. During the Fall 2024 semester, when McKenna Shelide was a student in the course, her small group came up with an idea to start a student organization for pre-service teachers. “It’s kind of surprising, but there wasn’t a club for us. And we really thought there was so much we could be doing,” Shelide says. Students ended up picking another idea for their class project. But after class, Burke pulled Shelide and the other students in her group aside and told them if they were really serious about starting a club, he could connect them with some folks who could help. Shelide and the other students jumped on the idea, and within a couple weeks, they had their own campus chapter of Aspiring Educators, the student arm of the National Education Association and Michigan Education Association.

Shelide, who’s currently serving as the group’s president, says one of their primary goals is to provide learning and professional development opportunities that complement their formal coursework, and the affiliation with the MEA has proven to be an effective way to do that. For example, at one of the club’s first meetings, a representative from the MEA talked about the ins and outs of teachers unions. And last November, the students attended an MEA conference that included sessions like “The Tea on Teaching,” which featured early-career teachers sharing their honest takes on finding their footings in the profession. Kamryn McCutcheon, the club’s vice president, says she found the session on prep for the state certification exam particularly helpful. “We got to talk through some sample questions, what to expect on test day and how the exam is going to be laid out,” McCutcheon says. “It’s obviously pretty stressful thinking about that test because you have to pass in order to get a job. So it just makes you feel better going into it when you know what to expect.”

Shelide and McCutcheon say the club is also focusing on service projects. For example, for Valentine’s Day, they got together to make homemade valentines for children in foster care. And they recently received a $2,000 grant from the NEA to partner with an elementary school in Allen Park to fulfill a student and teacher “wish list” of supplies and resources. Shelide says these service projects are obviously about giving back. But they also provide a venue for visiting schools, networking with teachers and getting more practical experience working with kids.

Of course, the group is also providing some much needed camaraderie. Teaching is not the easiest profession to be going into these days. It’s demanding and stressful, the pay isn’t great and the hyper-partisan politics in America have spoiled some of the trust that used to exist between parents, teachers and students. With all of those challenges, Shelide says you have to really want to do it, and having a solid group of people around you who have similar worries and aspirations helps a lot. “My mom was a teacher and she had such a great group of friends at her school and I always kind of hoped I’d have the same thing — like, the people you go to chat with after the bell rings,” Shelide says. “With this club, I’ve met a bunch of great friends. Really, Kamryn’s probably like, ‘Can this girl stop texting me?’ So to be able to share your excitement — or if you need to complain about something — it’s just been so nice to have this group to rely on.” 

Burke is excited to see the group is taking root. Student clubs can be hard to maintain long term, and he says the college has had a few iterations of student groups for pre-service teachers over the years. But those were all organized by faculty and failed to gain enough traction with students. “I think that’s the main reason you’re seeing a lot more success with this group. They have this core group of members and now they’re connecting with their classmates and friends, so you have this natural networking effect,” Burke says. “Plus, because it’s coming from them, they know what they need. We faculty have good intentions, but we can just kind of make guesses at it.”

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Story by Lou Blouin. If you want to learn more about the club, email McKenna Shelide.