Teachers take pupil role for program

Christy Brown is usually teaching English at Thomson High School, but last week , she is a student at The Augusta Chronicle as part of the CSRA School to Work: Educators in Industry program.

In its second year, the program involves 36 area businesses and gives teachers the opportunity to see how different industries work.

"The Chronicle was my first choice because I teach English and I thought that journalism would be a very compatible field to what I teach," said Brown, who has taught for 25 years, said. "I spent two days on the job site and then I will write a lesson plan incorporating what I have learned into teaching."

Brown is one of more than 100 teachers who will be touring the different departments that work together to produce a daily newspaper. So far, Ms. Brown has been to a budget meeting, accompanied a news reporter on an interview and talked with several editors and reporters in the newsroom. She will also receive a tour of the marketing department. She has seen several aspects of what makes the newspaper that students use in her classroom each day.

"I have learned a lot about how many different areas there are at a newspaper," Brown said.

Martha Caroline Reddick, who teachers Spanish, and Julie Norman, a French teacher at Thomson High, are planning to work together to help their students produce a foreign language newspaper after their observations at The Chronicle.

"We are going to let first- and second-year foreign language students write the articles. The third- and fourth-year students will put it into a foreign language newspaper," Reddick said.

Brown feels she can now better prepare her students for the working world after her experience in Educators in Industry.

"This experience has broadened my horizons as a teacher and makes me realize that it is important to teach not just English languages skills...but to teach life skills and teach the reasons behind why students are learning these things," she said. "I think that it is important that students realize that the job market is competitive and they need to be as well-equipped as they can be."