With the Texas Ranger Stadium to the left and the Dallas Cowboys Stadium to the right, the Westwood Texas Association of Future Educators (TAFE) club competed at the state competition in Arlington on February, 16th. After leaving on Thursday and travelling for four hours, the girls were filled with anticipation and excitement as they prepared to show off their hard work to the panel of judges. Competing against 1600 other students from all over Texas, the girls felt confident in their work. Friday was competition day, and the Warriors competed in three of the events.

“I was excited to see what it was gonna be like because I had never been to the state competition before,” Sam Pearcy ‘18 said. “It was cool to see all the different schools and everyone’s different ideas for all the projects. It definitely made me hopeful for our generations teachers and all the cool ideas that they had for how to better educate kids.”

The next day, after all of the competitions were done, the participants were able to hear from motivational speaker, Heather Schultz, about how to stay positive in times of sadness. They also travelled to the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), where they attended breakout sessions. This provided more choices for the participants to pick from, there were discussions about brains to simple multiplication. These were small groups in which the students could ask successful teachers at UTA about their experience in the field of education.

“I loved the breakout sessions they were all very creative and fun,” Bethany Gaona ‘18 said. “I feel like I really learned lot.”

To relax after a busy couple of days, the organization hosted a talent show. There were acts ranging from singing to dancing and even slam poetry. This was a great event to get to know TAFE students from other schools. The final day at this event consisted of more breakout sessions, a motivational speech from Patrick Maurer, and the results. The girls did an excellent job, and with three silver certificates for the Educational Leadership Fundamentals test and a blue ribbon for a bulletin board, each girl came home with a token of their hard work.

“After our presentation didn’t go the way we wanted it to, I was certain we wouldn’t place above a 90,” Caitlin Dickey ‘17 said.  “But after placing, walking across the stage to be acknowledged just goes to show that hard work doesn’t go unnoticed.”

All the girls had a successful and educational weekend in which they created relationships with influential people in the field of education that they will be able to use in their future.