When Christopher Salcido was a student at Prairie View Middle School, he discovered the value of hands-on learning.

Growing up, Christopher enjoyed putting his hands to good use. He could take things apart and he could usually get it all back together again. It fascinated him. It also made him really useful around the house.

“I would always help around my house with repairs that needed to be done or anything like that and I loved it,” he said.

Figuring out how things ticked, made for really interesting ways to explain how things fit together around the house and in his world. He was most engaged when he was crafting, building or experimenting with his hands. But that didn’t always translate into a useful strategy to stay on top of his learning as he got older.

“At school, I would have a lot of trouble concentrating in classes when there wasn’t that sort of hands-on aspect included in the curriculum.”

So Christopher decided he needed to learn how to engage in different ways in order to hold his interest at school. That’s when he decided to get involved in school in new ways once he got to middle school. At Prairie View Middle he was the student who posted the American flag every morning and read the morning announcements.

He also played a pivotal role in setting up what the school called “student panels.” This is a staff-student process that reinforces the school’s core values: togetherness, integrity, growth, equity, respect, and school-spirit everyday.

The panels afford students space and voice to give staff feedback on their instructional practices and their effectiveness in modeling the core values. Teachers welcome suggestions like those from Christopher who told staff about the importance of hands-on learning activities.

Language Arts teacher Angela McGee took Christopher’s points to heart.

“Ms. McGee would provide us with a lot of different hands-on activities which made me really enjoy being in school because I was learning in a way I preferred,” he said.

Christopher also participated in Destination Imagination, a program established by a global non-profit organization that provides unique educational experiences across seven project-based challenge categories: technical, scientific, engineering, fine arts, improvisational, service learning, and early learning. Challenges were most often formed around some kind of hands-on learning and demonstrations. Christopher was perfectly aligned with this kind of academic exploration.

Working with his peers in this kind of challenging environment got Christopher thinking about how he could take these experiences and make it something he could do after he graduated from high school. That’s when he really started learning about the field of engineering. In particular, he developed a fondness for electrical engineering.

As a middle school student, Christopher figured he needed to prepare himself for high school so he could set himself up with the best chances for getting into college and pursuing an engineering degree. His teachers encouraged him to take opportunities that developed strong leadership skills which was something most colleges looked for in prospective students.

Once he got to Prairie View High School, he became interested in student government and joined the student council. He put his love of electronics to work as part of the school’s robotics club. And he challenged himself academically to stay sharp, in part, by earning his way into the National Honor Society.

Christopher saw early on what he excelled in and what he enjoyed about learning. He was insightful at a young age to start considering how this self-understanding could propel him through school and into a respected and challenging career.

As a sophomore at Prairie View High School, Christopher is still exercising his engineering skills while cultivating new talents. His focus is still set on engineering and he’s determined to be the best electronic engineer possible.

Christopher credits Prairie View Middle School for seeing his early passion for using his hands and mind together to solve problems and to use that as a lens to understand more than just building things. He’s thankful that the teachers there nurtured his interests and urged him to do more with his skills, leading him to fully understand how his favorite learning modality could become a fruitful career.

“I believe in 27J Schools because they are always willing to help and understand you.”