WORTHINGTON ― Worthington High School teacher Bonnie Bents has spent 21 years of her career imparting lifelong skills as students prepare for adulthood.
Bents teaches Family and Consumer Science (FACS), which comprises a variety of subjects including foods classes, interior design, child development, creative sewing and independent living.
These practical skills help students prepare to live on their own, Bents noted.
“It’s a real application of what they learn in the core classes,” she said.
She reminds students that this is why they learn math and other academic knowledge.
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“Everybody needs to eat,” Bents said of her foods classes. A perennial exercise in her foods classes is to have students make a list of the staple foods in their house, and Bents then suggests recipes for them to try.
Child development is useful for a number of professional fields and for anyone who becomes a parent, she noted. Independent living covers the skills students will need to live alone as adults.
In addition to offering practical learning, Bents said she tries to make her classes fun for the students. She also fosters a place where students can have a clean slate, regardless of how they perform in their other classes.
“I try to judge each kid on who they are in my classroom,” Bents said, “and I try to get them to succeed on the abilities that they have.”
Bents said a key to her success is that she assumes all of her students will go into a field related to her class. She is constantly studying what is new in each industry and what students will need to know if they do indeed end up in a related field.
After 21 years, Bents has seen students graduate and pursue careers in a plethora of professions.
“It’s fun to see what they have gone into,” she said, adding that when her students do well as adults, “it’s a source of pride for me.”
In addition to teaching FACS, Bents also advises the WHS chapter of Family, Career and Community Leaders of America. FCCLA helps students cultivate professional and leadership skills.
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“The three senior FCCLA leaders this year had to take it above and beyond,” Bents said. After a surgery in December, Bents was out of commission for a while, and the three senior female FCCLA students had to prepare the rest of the students for the upcoming competition.
“I’m so proud of them,” Bents said, with tears in her eyes.
This example is just one reason the students are Bents’s favorite part of her job.
“The students in Worthington are really compassionate for others,” Bents said, “and that’s what makes it really enjoyable to work with them.”
The recent shift to distance learning has required Bents to alter her lesson plans, but she still focuses on practical, hands-on skills. For example, she had students clean their refrigerators at home, including throwing out expired food and sanitizing every surface. To turn in the assignment, students took pictures and submitted them to Bents for review.
Bents was unfazed by the need to shift her curriculum, because she is always tweaking her syllabus anyway. FACS is “a research-based course,” Bents noted. The latest information and best practices influence her course plans not just in skills taught, but in the equipment she supplies in the classroom.
FACS skills are essential, Bents said. What students learn in her classes is every bit as important as biology and classic literature.
“I’m very passionate about what I teach,” Bents said. “FACS is based on improving the family, life skills and students getting careers. It teaches them how to work and be a good employee.”
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The high caliber of WHS students makes a huge difference in her classes, Bents reiterated.
“Worthington is a wonderful place to work because of the variety of students that I have,” she said. “A lot of them have strong family backgrounds.
“Worthington students want to achieve, want to learn and want to make things better,” she said.
