Prairie School Student Looks Forward to a Teaching Career

Prairie School freshman and Mount Pleasant resident Ashley Dail has been dancing and performing since she was four. While she would love find solid footing in a dance career after high school, she knows a dancer's life can be risky when it comes to job security. Because she likes kids and wants to help prepare kids for their own futures, Ashley is looking toward a career in teaching. 

Whiz Kid's Name: Ashley Dail, 14

Whiz Kid's School: The Prairie School, freshman

Whiz Kid's Accomplishment: Ashley is focusing on ballet and tap dancing right now, but her favorite form of dance is jazz. She has also appeared on stage in several Prairie School productions including Alice in Wonderland last year as an eighth grader and as a witch last fall. She is currently playing "Jan" in a student-directed production of Just be Frank.

"It's fun being on stage acting," Ashley said. "I get to do things I wouldn't normally do."

Whiz Kid's Key to Awesomeness: After high school, Ashley hopes to attend Carlton College in Minnesota and get a degree in English followed closely by a teaching certificate for second and third graders. She chose Carlton because it's considered an Ivy League school in the Midwest.

"They have a strong dance and English programs," she said. "And it's only about five or six hours away from home instead of across the country."

The reason Ashley wants to be a teacher, she said, is because she likes helping kids, but also because she learned something interesting at a seminar she attended last summer.

"I learned that kids retain the most information in second and third grades," she said. "But if a child is not at a third grade level for reading, math and science while they're in third grade, they have a 90 percent chance of not graduating from high school. I want to help kids be better people."