Barber Middle Students Serve as Mentors

SUBMITTED BY COBB SCHOOLS

For three days, Barber Middle School students stepped into second-, third- and fifth-grade classrooms at Acworth Elementary School (AES) to help the younger students with their science, technology, engineering and math projects. The 40 middle schoolers served as assistant teachers while the AES students worked on their Balloons Over Broadway assignments.

Handing out materials and helping guide the elementary students through the same engineering design process they used in middle school, the Barber students saw firsthand what it is like to be a teacher.

“I learned that when you’re a teacher, you have to let your students take charge of their own ideas and not hold their hand throughout the entire thing,” seventh-grader Sujay said.

The middle schoolers, however, did pose questions to help the Acworth students think through the design process, and they discovered what it was that encouraged the young students to listen. They also learned when they just needed to step back and let their mentees solve problems themselves.

“Sometimes, the kids just don’t want to talk while they are working on something, which is totally fine, and it’s best to just let them do their own things without being disturbed,” seventh-grader Nola said.

Eighth-grader Ethan agreed that allowing the students to work independently on the projects created more learning opportunities.

“An important lesson I learned about being a teacher is that you should always give students room to learn from their mistakes,” he said. “You shouldn’t do their work for them.”

Other Barber students recognized the importance of managing the classroom and overseeing the students as they worked on their projects.

“It’s important to check on every child because if you don’t, you could miss something, and they could be behind,” said Naeema, a seventh-grader.

Thanks to her experience at Acworth, eighthgrader Angie understands how working together is advantageous.

“An important lesson I learned is that students, with the help of their teachers, are able to think of many possibilities to create solutions for a problem, and they gain more opportunities to learn new things each day,” she said.

The Barber students, who are looking forward to returning

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