Aborn students get life lesson from high schoolers

LYNN-The future leaders of Lynn business received their first lessons in finances and marketing Friday, as the Aborn Elementary School hosted a group of Lynn English High School students as guest teachers of the Junior Achievement Curriculum.Members of the high school’s Future Teacher’s Club teamed up with Junior Achievement to teach classes in every grade about important life skills, business ideas and financial responsibility. The younger students responded with enthusiasm as the high school pairs read to them and worked closely with them on worksheets and fun activities.”The kids are really into it and getting involved with the lessons,” said fifth grade teacher Jonathan Eddy. “It is very interactive and they are learning about the business opportunities that will come to them later in life.”In Eddy’s class, the English volunteers taught students about finances and the basics of finding a job, even filling out a photocopied McDonald’s application.Across the hall in Betty Wladkowski’s fourth grade class, volunteers tied business into her geography curriculum, discussing the importance of location in the overall success of a business.”The kids are very enthusiastic, and it is also nice to see the high school kids acting as role models too,” said Wladkowski, who was responsible for bringing the program to the Aborn. “I am amazed. When I first looked at the material I wasn’t sure that they would understand, but now I am hearing them use vocabulary like ?profit’ and ?expense.’ They are learning new vocabulary, economics and all about setting up a small business, so it really fits in to some things that, normally, we wouldn’t get to cover.”The Future Teacher’s Club is deceiving in its name, as participants are not necessarily focused on becoming educators. The group is more focused on community service in general, and teaming up with Junior Achievement is just a part of their overall philosophy of giving back.”(Teaching) could be something I would want to do, but I want to do a lot of things,” said senior Marcus Soares, who read to a group of kindergarten students along with fellow senior James Snyder. “But this was a good experience, the kids were beaming – really cute kids, really attentive.”Soares said he read five different books to the kindergarten class, touching on responsibility, teamwork and hard work. Despite having a group of younger kids that he expected would pay little attention to his lesson, he said the children were fixated on he and his partner throughout the day.While some of the volunteers said they did not want to go into education after graduating, the experience still allowed them to gain a much different outlook on how difficult teaching really is.”It was a lot better than I thought it would be. I definitely have a new found respect for first grade teachers,” said senior Tania Maslova. “This was worth it, but I wouldn’t want to do it every day.”The Aborn students were said to be looking forward to the English visit for days, and let the volunteers know how much they appreciated their visit with hugs and praise as they left the classroom.”They didn’t want us to leave,” said senior Erina Keefe “They were clutched on to us, hugging us around the legs.”