C.A.S.E., a Program of G.O.D Int’l, invites a professional electrician to teach the youth about electrical work and how it benefits a construction team.
If you ask a middle school student how electricity gets to the light switch in their kitchen, you might have difficulty finding someone with an answer. Given, it isn’t an easy question to answer. But, if you ask this summer’s CASE students that same question, you will get an answer!
My name is Tim Sherrod and I’m a licensed electrical contractor in Nashville. This week, I was invited by CASE to participate in two skills development sessions with the students. CASE is an after-school program that partners with Nashville After Zone Alliance for middle schoolers in the Metro Nashville public school (MNPS) system where they learn character and skills development. The emphasis of this week’s session was on expertise and how someone’s expertise fits into a larger project or team. I offered to teach the students some of the skills I have learned for my job as an electrician and show them what role my expertise serves in building houses.
On the first day, I met the students at our company headquarters and gave them a tour of our office, introduced them to some of my co-workers and showed them examples of building plans that we use to know how to complete our part in the building project.
Then, after fielding a couple questions about whether we were going to work in the shade—a fair question for this hot summer!—we went to the shop to get started. After reviewing safety protocols and introducing them to the “tools of the trade,” we got started on our projects. We began by building wooden frames that resembled the type of frames that exist behind the walls in their houses. They got to practice and learn how to properly use a tape measure, hammer, and battery-powered drills and drivers.
To emphasize the importance of expertise and how it fits into a larger team, the students were put in groups and had to determine how each person would contribute to the project. While one student drilled the holes in the wooden frames to secure them, another student would hold the boards in place.
On the last day, we installed the electrical wire that connected the power to the switch and the switch to the light. It was here where they got to see all that goes into getting a switch to turn on or off a light in their house.
When we finished our project, we had the final step of connecting our projects to live electricity and testing our switches and lights. We did one group at a time, and celebrated together as each project was a success! Their lights worked when they turned on the switches. I was as excited as they were!
I still remember the first time someone showed me how to install electrical wires and the first time I turned on a switch for a light I installed. I remember the satisfaction of turning the switch on and seeing the light turn on. But I was already in my twenties. Perhaps some of these students got a head start for a future job and will participate in the very commendable occupation of working with their hands (Acts 20:34-35), or perhaps they just got an insight into the expertise and teamwork involved in a project like building a house. Either way, I hope it was a memorable moment for understanding expertise and the role it plays in a team.
You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.- Acts 20:34-35
CASE is a program of the Nashville After Zone Alliance. The Nashville After Zone Alliance is a network of coordinated after school programming for Metro’s middle-school students. NAZA is a partnership among the Nashville Public Library, MNPS, and other existing youth-serving groups. It is modeled on successful efforts in other cities and is organized around geographically-defined zones.
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