Bob Manning. Photo: Chris Emeott
Stillwater educator Bob Manning brings alternative enrichment programs to students.
Bob Manning has spent decades helping students connect classroom learning to the real world. As a former geography teacher and now a Career Pathways coordinator at Stillwater Area High School, Manning knows that kids need a sense of how their learning fits into the context of real life, including future jobs and travel.
“Ironically, I am the poster child for the type of student that needs the services that I offer today,” Manning says, sharing that he felt unsure about the paths available to him after high school and how his interests—like history—could fit into the real-world job market. After obtaining a degree in psychology and spending some time as an insurance underwriter, he started teaching geography at what was then Stillwater Junior High, where he stayed for 27 years. He took a year off in 2007 to develop global perspective seminars for Target’s corporate headquarters in Minneapolis and India. “That really helped me establish business connections and a perspective on the industry and their needs,” Manning says. He started thinking about how to bring that sense of global connectedness to his students.
When ninth grade moved from junior high to Stillwater Area High School, the teachers moved too, including Manning. He joined the committee that would become the Pathways Program, helping students discover their strengths and plan for life after high school.
In 2014, Manning and his wife, Chris Manning, a second-grade teacher for Centennial Public School District, found an opportunity to bring geography enrichment to elementary schoolers. They purchased The Passport Club, a curriculum that helps students learn about the countries of the world with monthly book picks, activities and their own “passport stamps.”
“I thought it was brilliant to open the world early,” Manning says. The Passport Club gives students “that global perspective, empathy and interest in others that they will eventually be either working with or impacted by in some way later on in life,” he says. The club is used in Stillwater’s gifted and talented program, as well as in other schools and homeschooling groups around the country.
Each November, 11th graders at Stillwater Area High School participate in Test Drive Reality Fair, a financial literacy simulation hosted by Royal Credit Union. Photo: Jenna Jorgensen
In addition to The Passport Club, Manning is involved with several other alternative learning experiences. He organizes career fairs, guest speakers and business tours for the high school’s Pathways Program and runs a financial literacy simulation called Test Drive Reality Fair, in partnership with Royal Credit Union, where students spend a day navigating a simulated career, mortgage or rent, children’s expenses, car payments and more. “All of our 11th graders go through this,” Manning says. “By the end, they see the reality of what their income and choices do. It’s fantastic.”
He also helps coordinate a summer “externship” program for Stillwater teachers; around 60 teachers spend a few days with local businesses, attending tours and creating lessons based on what they’ve learned about the industry. “They get to see what’s out there, make connections with these employers and bring that back to their classrooms,” Manning says.
For Manning, programs like these aren’t supplemental—they’re essential. “We are so connected to the world in an environmental, economic, political and social sense. If students don’t understand the world that they’re entering, they have no context to make the right decisions for themselves,” he says. “The stakes are higher than ever.”
Learn more about alternative enrichment opportunities at stillwaterschools.org and at passportclubonline.com.
Facebook: The Passport Club
