Teaching several different classes may be seen as a challenge – but it is something veteran teacher Babs Foster has done and excelled at for years.

Foster currently teaches hospitality, interior design, and fashion design. After beginning her career at other schools, she found her home at LCM and has been at the high school for about 17 years now. She said she finds her job to be rewarding and enjoys the relationships she develops with her students throughout each school year.

“Because many of the classes I teach are a skill-based subject, I enjoy hearing how my students have applied that skill later in life,” Foster said. “I have had several students ask for sewing machines for Christmas and many students take their machines to college and earn money making items to sell. I love this and that is a great testament for what they have learned!”

According to Foster, her goal in teaching is for all of her students to have a level of success in her classes in which they can later use their knowledge and skills in life.

Foster said she has always enjoyed the aspects of family consumer science, which gives her the opportunity to teach life lessons and real world applicable learning. Family Consumer Science subjects are generally what a student can apply in life, whether it is purchasing a home, budgeting, relationships and parenting, sewing, planning meals, decorating, or planning an event. 

Foster said she loves taking her students on field trips that might otherwise not be able to tour or visit a place that they could go and see. She likes for her students to “see” what they are learning about in the classroom. 

“Years ago, I took my Interior Design classes to Moody Mansion in Galveston,” Foster said. “We rode the ferry, and I had a student that was a senior that was so excited. She had never seen the beach, ridden on a ferry, or had been to Galveston. The trip was an awesome experience for her.”

Foster said she enjoys teaching different subjects and working on different projects with her classes. Her favorite projects with her classes are: a quilt in fashion design one, a weekender bag in fashion design two, a diorama or storyboard in interior design, and the food truck project in hospitality.

“I have never taught just one course,” Foster said. “There’s a whole lot of changing gears throughout the day, and it takes a lot of organization and preparation to teach a different subject every 45 minutes. Also, there has to be a place for everything because of the multiple projects going on throughout the day.”

According to Foster, she loves to see that moment when her students understand the concepts of what she is teaching.

“You know, the light bulb above the head moment, like figuring out exactly how to put a pattern together in fashion design,” she said. “I love seeing my students work independently and have pride in what they are doing, without asking me a lot of questions along the way. This tells me they are really learning.”