CTE Teacher Spotlight – Scott Bass
Caroline Cox
Associate Product Marketing Manager • Career and Technical Education • National Geographic Learning | Cengage
The Career and Technical Education (CTE) Career Journeys series is aimed to shed light on current career trends as they align to student career clusters. In this series installation, we have interviewed Aimee Steele, Assistance General Counsel in the law, public safety, corrections and security career cluster. Aimee shares with us the career journey that lead her to her current role with Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District. Aimee dives into what motivated her to pursue this career, milestones that lead to where she’s at today, how she stands out in her field and advice for others looking to pursue this career. This series also offers career outlook data collected from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Educator Introduction
Name: Scott Bass
Title: Agriscience Teacher and FFA Advisor
School District/State: Weddington High School, Union County, NC
Question and Answer with Scott Bass
Q: What does CTE Month mean to you?
A: Career and Technical Education Month is the time to inform the world and celebrate the hard work of educational professionals that are passionate about preparing young people by developing transferrable skills that can make them intentionally wealthy and successful.
Q: How do you engage and motivate students in CTE courses, ensuring they have a meaningful and relevant learning experience?
A: We intertwine the state curriculum with real-world activities and experiential learning. We hatch fertilized eggs, grow out layers, and sell eggs to provide students with active learning and entrepreneurial skills. We also grow vegetables to sell and partner with our feeder elementary schools and our middle school to plant raised beds. The students learn by teaching the younger students while developing interest in our program.
Q: Can you share any success stories or examples of students who have benefited from participating in CTE programs?
A: This past summer I was at CTE Summer Conference in Winston Salem. I was talking with two educators from University of Mount Olive about our school and their university. They asked me about a particular student that is now attending UMO. They just went on and on telling me how impressive she is and that she would make a great educator but her parents were pushing her to do something that paid better than public education. I laughed like a proud “poppa” and told them the story of when she came to our Ag Program and FFA at Weddington High School. She lacked self-confidence and I could hardly understand her when she would talk with me because she spoke at such a low volume. However, we did weekly presentations in class and she really began to bloom. In fact, by her senior year she was in FFA and the “Teaching as a Profession” program. She was a “student teacher” at our middle school and she was AMAZING. In fact, I confessed to her that I thought she was planning to take my job and that would be OK when I’m ready to retire.
I had another young lady that had a “504 Disability Plan” for anxiety and fear of public speaking. We had to “make accommodations” which was a little tricky because we do group collaborative presentations every week for every unit. So, in the beginning she and I struck a deal: she would prepare the presentations and her group mates would present. As time went on I convinced her to just stand up front with her group while they presented. By the end of the semester she was making presentations and served as our class president.
Another of my happy moments was when one of my English as a Second Language students became comfortable enough and was voted in by her classmates to be our class president. I was so very impressed by her willingness to stand at the front and speak in a language that was new to her. However, we have to celebrate her classmates too who made sure that she knew they were on her team and we learned some Spanish while she learned some English!!!
The Samples You Want Without The Wait!
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