By Jennifer Chambers
Detroit News
Junior Devin Wilbourn stood over a dissection tray grasping a cow eyeball in one hand and scissors in the other to trim fatty tissue from around the orb in his anatomy class.
Down the hall, student Hannah Lampkin gave a detailed presentation on obtaining a business license as a stock ticker display ran above her head.
Upstairs, 11th grader Courtnie Davenport explained how her separate interests in watching sports and learning about medicine lead her to kinesiology, which — as she explained to adults touring her school — is the study of exercise science.
All three King students are enrolled in learning academies at King, a selective-admission Detroit Public Schools Community District high school, where they get on-the-job training in classes for future careers in engineering, finance and sports marketing.
The academies, which exist across DPSCD high schools, are structured as small learning communities within a high school building. Students take all of Michigan’s merit curriculum courses to fulfill traditional graduation requirements but select elective courses taught in the academies that align with their own interests and future career paths.
Educators are always striving for moments when a student takes an interest in a subject and connects it to a career, but teens need a space to go and engage with professionals, says King teacher Dan Wolford, who leads the Sports M3 Pathway program where students can choose a medicine, management or marketing track to earn a Sports M3 diploma.
DPSCD partners with a non-profit education company called NAF that provides curriculum training and certification to the school for the academies and provides connections and internships with local employers. In the academies, students tour businesses, visit medical centers and meet professionals doing the career work, including those with the Detroit Tigers, Detroit Pistons, the University of Michigan, Detroit City FC, Microsoft and others.
“Everyone has a different timeline as to what is going to turn on the lightbulb. But what I have seen through our pathway is the experiences,” Wolford said. “It’s the student who goes to the Pistons mentorship program, they get to see departments and something clicks and they say ‘This is what I want to do.’ Now there are students who say ‘I may be a baseball player now, but maybe I want to be a scout or work in a front office.’”
MLK principal Damian H. Perry said students begin in the academies in their freshman year with a first-semester career exploration course and then a second-semester personal finance course, where they learn about contracts and credit worthiness. All the electives in the academy are taken in grades 10-12 and certifications are offered in some pathways such as sports medicine therapy.
“This is all about having the students be excited about the pathways in their education and that connects to students coming to school everyday,” Perry said. “If I am excited about the career path I am wanting to do, I understand how much money I can make, I understand all those connections, I am more apt to be excited to come to school because I am doing something I am excited about instead of being assigned electives that don’t connect to my interest.”
Dr. Shedrick Ward, a teacher in Detroit for 50 years dressed in a physician’s white lab coat, led four students on Thursday as they dissected the eyeball of a cow in the school’s MSAT Pathway program, which stands for math, science and applied technologies.
Students have been studying anatomy since September, Ward said, and this month they are in the second stage of learning when they use surgical tools. Cats were the first animal dissected in class, and the students had the responsibility of identifying all its parts, including the brain.
“So we can talk about learning as a modification of brain issue,” Ward said. “That is what we do here. We cause brains to be modified based on the experiences they have. Right now they are having the experience of using surgical tools because some of my people are going to be doctors one day. And I want them to have this as a pivotal experience on their pathway of becoming what they dream of becoming.”
Ward, a graduate of Wayne State Medical School, says he enjoys the experience of helping young people know what medicine is all about. The dissection of the cow eyeball is both a tactical and visual experience and very important for learning.
“The problem that many young people have is the technical details that are required in medicine. Young people are not accustomed to the kind of details needed in anatomy and physiology,” Ward said.
Devin Wilbourn, 16, quietly focused on the cow eyeball in his hand, trimming away the fatty tissue, during the class. The teen says he loves the anatomy class and is thinking about becoming an engineer.
“I heard a lot of good stuff about this school,” Wilbourn said. “This is very fun for me. I’ve also dissected a shark my sophomore year. It’s challenging at first if you don’t know what you are doing.”
Career and technical education across Michigan has grown in recent years. More than 108,000 students were enrolled in secondary CTE programs as of 2023, according to the Michigan Department of Education. Michigan has 2,130 CTE programs.
Sue Carnell, the department’s deputy superintendent, came to King and DPSCD’s Frederick Douglass Academy for Young Men to see the academy programs first hand, which are touted by educators as ways to prepare students for life after college by offering real-life work skills and connections and internships with local employers.
“Students showed a passion for their next level. They get to see themselves and work with people who are a part of those careers to see if this is what they want to do,” Carnell said. “Some kids said ‘I didn’t think this for was me and somebody helped me along the way.’”
“The conversations from the students are authentic, which I really appreciated,” Carnell said. “MDE would want to see more of students finding their pathways and just being in love with that and saying ‘I want to move forward.’”