MISD Youth Dive into Future Career Choices

It’s a summer of exploration for dozens of Mansfield ISD students going into grades 6-8. Ben Barber Innovation Academy’s (BBIA) annual Rising Star Discovery Camp is underway.

The camp is a fun introduction to a few courses offered at BBIA. Students are able to receive an interactive overview of topics ranging from culinary arts, video production, graphic design, criminal justice and computer maintenance.

Green helps a student troubleshoot a computer tower.

Instructor Jimmie Green, Sr. said he likes seeing the kids learn, and the learning is a mutual process.

“These kids are smart. I can teach them 1,000 things, and they can teach me 2,000,” he said. “We’re diagnosing, defragging; and by the end of it, we’ll have a race to see who can take a computer apart and put it back together the fastest.”

Camp coordinators work hard to make the courses mimic real-life situations.

In the criminal justice class, the students went outdoors to investigate a staged crime scene. Chris Vasquez, who previously worked with the Houston Police Department for 11 years, said it’s a way to give students a general idea of the policing world while creating positive experiences between the children and law enforcement.

“I went into teaching because I got tired of putting kids in jail and wanted to catch them before they get corrupted in the system,” he said. “They’re learning the steps of an investigation right now, which involves documenting and picking up evidence.”

Vasquez gives instructions on how to correctly document evidence.

The teachers said their goal is to spark an interest in the students that will hopefully have them coming back to BBIA to pursue their respective career paths when they enter high school.

“Once my curiosity was sparked in computer maintenance, there was no turning back for me, so I hope these kids find the same interest in a topic,” Green said.

BBIA’s Rising Star Discovery Camp runs June 12-16 from 8 a.m. to noon. The cost of registration is $65.