St. Clair Shores

Teacher Cadet only Michigan student inducted into honor society

By Kristyne E. Demske
C & G Staff Writer

» click to enlarge « Photo by David Schreiber Kindergartners Elise Prainito, left, and Giana Fett listen to Lakeview High School junior Casey Blashill, a teacher cadet student, read them a story May 15. Photo by David Schreiber Kindergartners Elise Prainito, left, and Giana Fett listen to Lakeview High School junior Casey Blashill, a teacher cadet student, read them a story May 15.

She has an easy demeanor with the students as she reads stories and works with them on math.

She’s popular with the class, as well.

“She’s really nice,” said 6-year-old Ardmore Elementary kindergartner Giana Fett. “She helps us to read, and she takes us out in the hallway sometimes and reads to us.”

“She reads to us what’s hard to read,” agreed her classmate, 5-year-old Elise Prainito.

But while Casey Blashill may look a natural in the classroom, she’s really just a student herself — a junior at Lakeview High School in the Teacher Cadet Career Technical Education class.

“She only has to be there (from) 1:15-2:45 every other week,” said her Teacher Cadet instructor, Candace Mazurek. “She’s staying late, she’s there till the kids get out, about 3:20. She’s taking on a lot of roles.”

“She makes them all feel special,” agreed Joanna Ansted, the Ardmore Elementary kindergarten teacher that Blashill is working with.

Teacher Cadet is a class for high school juniors interested in teaching, said Mazurek. Sixty percent of the course is instructional and 40 percent is time for the high school student to be a teacher’s aide in the district. In the second year of the course, students spend half of the school day as a teacher’s aide and take online classes.

Students in this class join the Future Educators Association, and while 31 of Mazurek’s students are involved, only Blashill took the initiative to apply for the FEA Honor Society. She was the only inductee from the state of Michigan, and just 133 students across the country were accepted.

“I was so surprised,” said Mazurek.

Mazurek said this is the first student from the Lakeview Teacher Cadet program to be inducted into the FEA Honor Society. She said it’s exciting because it gives the program some credibility.

“You’ve got to somehow be ahead of everybody,” she said of those who want to be teachers. Students in the Teacher Cadet program are able to take the basic skills portion of the Michigan Test for Teacher Certification before they are even in college, something that most aspiring teachers sit for in their sophomore year at college. The certification is required to gain entrance to an education school.

Blashill said she would like to attend either Grand Valley State University or the University of Florida after graduating from Lakeview.

FEA Honor Society members must complete 10 education-related service hours before applying and have a GPA of 3.5-4.0. Blashill has a 3.92 GPA and said it was easy to meet the volunteer requirements with all the time she spends at Ardmore.

“I stay after a lot and do extra things with my class,” said Blashill. She tutors some students and helped with Ardmore Elementary’s Fall Festival. “I really like just seeing the impact I make on the students’ lives. They look forward to when I’m there.”

She reads to the kindergartners individually and assists with activities and group reading. Blashill said she wants to major in mathematics education, but isn’t sure what grade she wants to teach.

“I feel it will help me in the future,” she said. “It’s giving me experience I can build on in the future.”

Students from Lake Shore and South Lake schools are also able to participate in the Teacher Cadet program, which is only taught at Lakeview in St. Clair Shores.

Ansted said she was not surprised to hear that Blashill had made it into the FEA Honor Society.

“I think it is true — she stands above everyone else,” Ansted said. “She makes them feel valued and supported.”

Years ago, Blashill was on the other side of Ansted’s desk as one of her kindergarten students.

“She was always a real mature … soul,” Ansted said. “She works extremely hard (and) goes beyond what I expect of her.”
 

You can reach C & G Staff Writer Kristyne E. Demske at kdemske@candgnews.com or at (586)498-1041.