Nov 8, 2007 9:31 pm US/Eastern
Elliot Rodriguez Goes Back To School
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
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Eliott Rodriguez Participates In District's "Teach-A-Thon"
CBS
It's very special when someone gets the opportunity to give back to the community. My chance came Thursday when I went back to the classroom as a teacher for the day.
It was all part of a local program called the Great American Teach-A-Thon which supports Miami-Dade Public Schools. But like any good teacher I wanted to become a little familiar with my students before I hit the classroom, so I invited the fifth graders from Fairlawn Elementary in Miami to visit CBS4.
The students caught on fast in the studio, as they learned broadcasting by delivering their school's morning announcements on camera.
"Hello, I'm Ashley, and today I'm coming to you from the studios of CBS4 News in Miami," said Ashley Maeso.
The rest of the Fairlawn news team, Loraine, Lourdes and Daniela took their turns on the set, as did Kevin, the junior sports anchor.
When their session wrapped, the students took their video with them, as a fun surprise for their friends. Now it was my turn to visit them and go back to the classroom, after all these years.
"My title at Channel 4 is anchorman, but what I really do is communicate," I told the classroom of fifth-graders at Fairlawn.
Under the watchful eye of their real teachers, who also helped me with my lesson plan, I gave the students some pointers about communicating with people.
"Communication is very, very important. And all the things we've talked about today, about being prepared, about knowing your material, about your appearance, about the way you tell a story in a very simple fashion-all of that is important, no matter what you want to do," I explained.
It was that part of the lesson that I wanted them to remember most in life, because I knew that I would remember the lessons I learned at Fairlawn Elementary. I learned that teaching might look easy, but it's not. It's complex, challenging and incredibly rewarding.
That's what the great American Teach-A-Thon is all about, giving people like me a chance to experience teaching and getting others involved by donating money for the supplies and equipment that make learning come alive and motivate kids to learn now and throughout their lives.
If you want to have the best education in the United States of America, you're going to have to engage the entire private sector, as well as the public sector, to really bring the kinds of resources that we need to educate our population to be the workforce for tomorrow," said the Education Fund's Corey Yugler.
Thanks to the Education Fund, and the staff and students at Fairlawn Elementary in Miami, I was able to be teacher for a day. As a result of the experience, more than $1500 was pledged to the Education Fund in my name by friends and colleagues, all of which will go to Miami-Dade Public Schools.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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