“I thought a factory would be gloomy and sad, but everybody was so friendly and great,” CAST STEM senior Destiny Martinez told the CAST Schools nonprofit board this Thursday. Describing her summer internship at Toyota, where she explored manufacturing production, cyber security and electrical work, she said: “I decided I want to be an electrical engineer because of this internship.” Destiny will graduate with CAST STEM with an associate’s degree from Palo Alto College and plans to study electrical engineering at UTSA next year.

Destiny was one of 4 CAST STEM students scheduled to deliver a presentation about the joy of authentic learning Saturday at the Alamo STEM Ecosystem Educator Conference. Jorge Olabaza described how Destiny had taught him to kayak when the school visited the H-E-B Outdoor School in Leakey, TX. In the process, he: “learned communication skills and teamwork, and it helped me ask for help from other students.”

This Tuesday (just before the cold weather blew in), a group of educators from all 7 of the CAST Schools took a minute out of their day to stroll through Hardberger Park, returning to a classroom at the park to examine the topic of place-based education.

San Antonio is such a special place, whether you love it for its rich culture and history, or for the unique ecology at the intersection of our San Antonio River and many creeks, intersecting the Texas Hill County and the subtropical brush country of South Texas, or for one of the many other reasons we treasure it: the tacos, the Spurs, the kindness of the people.

Schools focus a lot on the “what” – in other words, the skills that we adults want to make sure students know. At CAST, one of our core pillars is authentic learning, which means we are relentlessly committed to ensuring that learning is relevant to young people. One way to do that is to be deeply rooted in an understanding and a sense of the place we call home.

It is inspiring to spend a day with teachers who are dreaming of ways to get outside the four walls of the classroom, recounting how they have seen learning shift when a young person observes City Hall, for example, or sees how an H-E-B ecommerce fulfillment center works behind the scenes. Many also shared the magic they had experienced simply by moving learning outdoors, with students getting their hands dirty gardening, or testing water or soil.

Our hope, for our students, is that when they leave, in addition to important skills like reading, writing, math and computer programming, these real-world opportunities will mean they leave with a plan and a purpose, or at least a sense of what they want to do next. This is one of the many ways schooling must change to meet our present moment.

Jeanne Russell

Executive Director

CAST Schools