In ‘Teacher Track,’ Students Learn on Both Sides of Desk : Careers: A program funded by a Cal State Fullerton grant offers teen-agers a course in education as a profession.

When Sunny Hills High School juniors April Taylor, Emily Williams and Linda Wechsler were children, they wanted to be teachers. But it was just that--a wish, a consideration--until they enrolled in the Teacher Track program at Sunny Hills in Fullerton.

“Now I’m sure that’s what I want to do,” Taylor said.

While other students flip through college brochures and take job preference tests in the career center, Taylor, Williams, Wechsler and 15 other students are receiving college credit to explore a future career.

The Teacher Track program, funded by a Cal State Fullerton grant, offers students in the Fullerton, Anaheim and Santa Ana school districts a course that explains the teaching profession.

“Cal State wanted to expand their teaching program into high schools to encourage and provide knowledge about the profession,” said Teacher Track adviser Edlynn Zimmerman, who teaches honors English at Sunny Hills.

The purpose of Teacher Track is to provide students with information about the process of becoming a teacher, as well as how to finance their education.

“(The students) learn that they have to go to college for five years,” Zimmerman said. “And they look at the diversity of teaching, because you can go into many fields.”

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For Zimmerman, the Teacher Track program allows her to act as a public relations representative for her profession.

“I can talk to the students in a different area than content,” Zimmerman said. “I can talk to them on a professional level.”

Zimmerman’s enthusiasm persuaded some of her initially dubious students to continue coming to class.

“(Zimmerman) barely knows me, and she was talking to me like we were best pals,” said Williams, who wants to teach creative writing in college.

“I was really uncertain about whether I should stay, and she convinced me to.”

“Teaching is the only profession where you can help people and learn at the same time,” Williams said in explaining her attraction.

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Although Wechsler started in the program because a friend did, she decided it was a profession she’d like to work in.

In fact, Wechsler and juniors Joon Kang and Carolyn Lee have been selected by college counselor Don Joynt and Zimmerman to apply for a summer teacher workshop in Indiana.

Taylor wants to teach upper-division elementary school because “you get to teach everything.”

Cal State Fullerton provides textbooks, a field trip to its campus and pays the $385 tuition to take the class. Zimmerman brings in guest speakers, usually Sunny Hills teachers, to share their reasons for pursuing a teaching career. She said the speakers have the most impact on the students.

“It’s different to see (their) teachers talking in front of the class and then in front of the group about why they teach,” Zimmerman said. “They see me as a teacher but also as someone who loves to talk about teaching.”

To receive two units of transferable college elective credit, the students must attend 20 classes, which meet at lunchtime, as well as complete 20 journal entries and tutor for 40 hours.

The tutoring has been most influential in Williams’ desire to teach. Williams tutors her 7-year-old cousin and occasionally will tutor in her cousin’s third-grade class for a day.

“I taught (my cousin) her times tables, and she’s way above her class,” Williams said.

It was in last semester’s journal entries that Zimmerman said she saw that some of her students’ goals had evolved.

“I saw that the students who had come into the program just wanting the college credit left thinking this is a profession (they) really want to pursue.”