Elementary Education major Lexi Raymond ’21 is working to bring the community together while student teaching at Atwood Primary in Oakland.

All students in the Lunder School of Education at Thomas College are assigned an inquiry project in their senior seminar class where they must look to solve a problem, they identify within the school of their student teaching experience.

For Lexi’s project, she noticed that many of the students at her student teaching school were not as social and family members were lacking involvement, a side effect of COVID times. Lexi worked with her mentor teacher and the principal to create a story walk to help bring the community together at school.

The story walk was based off the book, The Nesting Quilt by Cathryn Falwell. The story walk included story signs on the trail behind the school where students and families were invited to.  

“We ended up having a great turnout and it got families outside, socializing, and reading – which was the goal!” said Lexi. “I would just like to add a huge thank you to the people at Atwood who helped make this possible and were so encouraging!”

Lexi says that she’s really enjoyed her student teaching experience and has noticed herself growing as an educator in many ways.

“Thomas prepared me for student teaching by having honest discussion, that teaching is not an easy field, but the professors worked to give me many skills necessary to tackle those struggles,” she said. “I was impressed by the creativity of the professors as well during COVID times, this was obviously something they had never dealt with before, but they ran with it, and I am so grateful for that!  Lexi graduates from Thomas College next month.