The Wayfinder Blog

Fifth-graders from around District 191 cheered and sang along to familiar songs as they watched the Burnsville High School band and orchestra perform at the Mraz Center on March 21.

“Sparking curiosity and wonder in each student.” That’s the driving force behind Pathways at the elementary level in District 191. It’s not about having young learners pick their future career, it’s about allowing students to discover a world of possibilities through rich learning experiences. Opportunities for this type of interaction are found throughout the school day, and one example is the district’s specialists coming together to provide amazing experiences for every student. 

Learn how Fiona Chow used early involvement to create opportunities and a path to project management and teamwork in technology and business. 

Burnsville High School hosted recipe testing for the 20th annual cookie contest of the Star Tribune newspaper last month, and students in culinary classes at the school were actively involved. 

The classes Davin took often provided hands-on learning experiences, but most importantly, he was able to earn important certifications that would be instrumental to his future. During hybrid learning his junior year, he started the Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) program with remote days focusing on theory and concepts and in-person days being focused on building skills and real-life applications like helping patients with daily activities and being a patient liaison.

Students in sixth, seventh and eighth grades are excited to try new things, begin to explore what is important to them and dive deep into subjects. Exploratory classes at Eagle Ridge and Nicollet middle schools allow students to do just that in areas like family and consumer sciences, art, health, computer technology, and Project Lead the Way engineering.

Those are just two of the many instruments students get the chance to play over the course of the year in Instrumental Music. The program, which started in the 2020-21 school year, gives each fifth-grader the opportunity to take 3-4 small-group lessons with instruments from each of the four orchestra instrument families - strings, brass, woodwinds and percussion. 

Whether it was teaching swim lessons out of her parents’ backyard pool as a teenager, participating in beauty pageants in high school, running a sewing school for young children as a stay-at-home mom, managing home-based businesses, supervising student teachers, doing preschool screenings or teaching students how to cook, she explored opportunities where she could thrive as an educator, entrepreneur and artist. All these experiences have helped shape her into the innovator that she truly is.