A line of third-graders carefully stepped inside the inflatable dome occupied by two teenage girls who had spent the previous evening preparing for the journey ahead.
Their destination? The stars.
“Do you guys ever do connect the dots or do you look up at the clouds and see something totally different than just clouds?” Burlington High School senior Kingsley Miller asked the group seated around her and fellow senior Kiara Winski. “People for thousands of years have been looking up at the night sky and seeing different pictures in the stars. We’re going to be showing you guys some of those pictures.”
The younger students gasped in awe as their surroundings morphed from that of a sunny day in Fairfield (the launch base imagery of the Great Prairie Area Education Agency’s Star Lab) to the diamond-studded blackness of outer space.
“What types of shapes do you guys see?” Miller asked.
A cacophony of voices filled the Star Lab as students called out various shapes and figures before Winski hit a button on the tablet controlling the 3-D projector that brought into view the constellations as the Greeks viewed them thousands of years ago.
The crescendo faded to a fresh round of oohs and aahs, and Miller began to point out the individual constellations like Hercules, Draco, Orion, Cancer and Leo, telling the Greek mythology behind each in a way that kept the young audience engaged.
“They’re naturals,” instructional coach Michael Carper said. “They went home and prepped heavily. I saw Kiara at soccer and was like, ‘What are you doing after this?’ She said, ‘I gotta go home and prep for my lesson tomorrow.’”
Winski and Miller are among 11 high school applicants who were selected to help out at this year’s elementary summer school program, which this year served about 90 students from Burlington and neighboring elementary schools.
Priority is given to applicants who have interest in pursuing careers in education after high school.
“I give priority to high schoolers who want to be teachers,” Carper said. “They get opportunities to come here and lead small-group lessons and things like that with a teacher so they can continue to mold their own kind of pedagogy in a way.”
Miller has been a high school helper each of the past four summers. The experience made her realize that there is nothing she would rather do than teach.
“I found out last year that because of this that I want to be a teacher and I can’t think of doing anything else now,” Miller said while waiting for the next round of students to enter the Star Lab.
She was soon joined by Bentlee Bohnenkamp, who chose to sit beside her in the dome’s center and asked when she would come to his classroom again.
“The high schoolers are so important to these little guys,” Carper said. “Yes, the teachers connect with them, but they really bond with those high school kids. When you see them coming out of their cars, a kid runs up and gives them a hug.”
The high schoolers went above and beyond to make morning drop-off fun and welcoming, dancing to music and holding up signs as students pulled up. BHS senior Ace Whalen bought an inflatable dinosaur costume specifically for morning drop-off, and the arriving elementary students’ enthusiasm mirrored Whalen’s own.
“Best part of my summer,” Whalen commented in a post about summer school on the district’s Facebook page.
“Our teenage helpers go above and beyond,” said interventionist Teresa Morris. “They have stepped up in a way that was beyond our expectations. We’re so proud and honored to have them.”
The high schoolers, along with associates, helped to make possible the cafe-style teaching method that Morris and fellow interventionist Judy White teamed up to try this summer. Small group interventions are key to cafe instruction, and the high schoolers got to lead some of those lessons.
Carper recalled one day when he walked around North Hill to find every single high schooler leading a lesson at the same time.
“It may have been listening to two kids read, it may have been doing little phonics things with them or cutting things out on paper,” Carper said. “It was so cool.”
Back in the Star Lab, Winski and Miller told the students the story behind the Leo constellation.
“Leo was a giant lion that tormented a town,” Miller said. “Have you guys ever been to the zoo? … Imagine that but 100 feet tall just roaming around Burlington, Iowa. Hercules was sent to slay him. If that ever happens to us, we’ll send Bentlee.”
