Essentials Magazine Essentials Spring 2019 | Page 28

5
Translating Your Profession to Students
Tips to Becoming an
BY PATRICK THORPE, AIA
Effective Educator
O
n July 31st, 2018 the
Carl D. Perkins Career
and Technical Education
(CTE) Act was signed into law.
If you are not an architect, or
involved in STEM education,
this may not have made headlines
in your news feed. This import-
ant legislation, however, allows
for over $1 billion in career and
technical education grants for
high school level architectural
programs.
For educators, this means States
will be allowed to use federal money
to modernize their CTE curriculum
to include architectural education and
“encourage a more diverse workforce,
fulfill the promise of design as the
synthesis of art and science, and affect
a fundamental change in educational
curricula.”
The American Institute of Archi-
tects (AIA) K-12 Initiative supports
28 essentials | spring 2019
the development of local architecture
education programs by building re-
lationships between chapters, mem-
bers, allied members and educational
partners. AIA is currently developing a
digital repository that includes sample
program guides and teaching tools,
scholarships, and grant opportunities.
These resources are invaluable in
creating and maintaining a successful
program.
The diversity and extent of re-
sources from a national network of
volunteers allows for anyone interested
in starting an Architecture in Educa-
tion (AIE) program the ability to start
making connections with local schools
almost immediately. There is a pleth-
ora of people willing to share learning
experiences and lesson plans from their
local programs. But let’s face it, if you
have never stood in front of a room full
of thirty rambunctious and curious stu-
dents, you may be apprehensive about
that first encounter. And that’s OK.
Nothing will be more import-
ant than creating a positive learning
environment from the start. Children