Mentor Interview

/in /by

The ACTE Fellowship experience provides leaders an opportunity to dive deeper in to the world of career and technical education (CTE).
Lesile Bleskachek showed her passion of CTE throughout the interview by explaining the many growth opportunities through membership of ACTE.  Here are the top three pieces of information I learned during the interview.

  1. Networking

Networking in the field of education gives professionals the chance to grow together.  The focus of networking, gives individuals the opportunity to come together and work through difficulties that may occur.  Lesile finds it rewarding when she attends ACTE events to take away the multitude of ideas she learns about.  She brings back three areas of focus to Minnesota State College Southeast.  Having a specific amount of ideas to focus is important especially, when coming back from an event can information overload.

  1. Igniting Passion

Lesile focused on the passion of career and technical education from all stake holders.  She finds that exposure to all areas of CTE, as an administrator gives her the chance to educate herself on the most current trends in the field.  With being current on the changes, she then develops programming opportunities for the students at Minnesota State College Southeast.  One specific example of igniting passion, is the band instrument repair program offered students have the opportunity to use their passion in music and earn an associate’s degree.

  1. CTE Advocacy

As Lesile’s career has changed over the years, she has seen more awareness being developed for CTE at both the secondary and post-secondary level.  Lesile works as an advocate for CTE in her community which translates in creation of educational opportunities for individuals.  She educates other about CTE, while also focusing on the understanding of how long programs will take in order for successful completion.  Lesile educates herself by reading Techniques magazine in addition to learning about legislative policy.

Networking, igniting passion, and CTE advocacy are all important areas of development for Lesile Bleskachek.  Through the Fellowship program my intention will be to grow in these areas as a professional.