AMES, Iowa — Iowa State University all-American basketball star Ashley Joens is a student of the game, but off the court she is a student-teacher in the Boone Community School District.
Joens came back for her fifth year not only to lead an Iowa State team that was picked to finish first in the Big 12 but to finish out her education degree.
The last step of that is getting real-world experience as a student teacher. She spent some time earlier this year in fifth grade at Indianola and is now teaching fourth graders in Boone.
Joens is able to use her experiences on the court to better the next generation.
"I mean a lot of kids and they don't see it now, they'll be struggling with a math problem or reading or something. And they don't see that if they keep practicing and working on it, they're gonna get better and they don't see that long jump that they'll make. But they're taking these little steps that eventually they'll be able to see the all their work kind of pay off," Joens said.
"When I'm in there. I'm telling them like, when I picked up a basketball for the first time, like I just wasn't all of a sudden an all-American, like it took a lot of practice, a lot of work and they, they kind of can connect a little bit with that," she added. "Most teachers don't have [that] and just kind of really cool to see their processes. They go in their mind working in different ways."