GREENSBORO, N.C. — Thursday, 16 Guilford County School students received some special, surprise news.
These Page and Western Guilford High students were presented with offers for teaching positions at Guilford County Schools after they graduate college.
“I was in shock because this is like the last thing that I would have expected!” Tohon White, a senior at Western High exclaimed.
“My heart still doesn’t even know what’s going on," Jadyn Becaots, a Page High School senior, said.
“I didn’t expect it at all. When I came here with my teacher, she told us that we were just going to get shirts and stuff like that and it really took it for a surprise," Tyrese Jermone, another senior at Western High School said.
“I was about to be in tears! Like, this is a great opportunity for me especially because I really want to be a teacher,” Blakely Miga of Western Guilford said with a smile on her face.
Designed to encourage student interest in teaching, these Teacher Cadets followed this extensive course to the finish line – right before their graduation.
“After going through the whole program and seeing how the kids grow each and every day, like how they have different learning, styles, and things, it’s very enriching, and I would love to be able to be a stepping stone for elementary school kids," White said.
For some like Becaots, whose family is extensively in education, it was an easy choice.
“I know my mom, my dad, everyone has made such a big impact on all students, and so they look up to my parents to look up to my sisters, and I want to do the same for my kids as well," Becaots said.
And for others, like Rogers, that passion was cultivated over the entirety of the course.
"This has been eye-opening, and it is changed that for me. I wouldn’t mind being a teacher and just like teaching people things and kids as well! It’s not just like a one-way, “Oh I’m teaching them”, no you learn from other people!” Said Shane Rogers, a senior at Western Guilford who is going to GTCC.
Regardless of where they came from, these students know where they’re going, and where they are coming back to.
“I actually have a picture of me and my goal, and it said that I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher. To this day I still want to do that," said Miga.