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Alicia Leonard
believes that having the right teachers “makes all the
difference.”
“I had great math teachers when I was growing up,” says the
22-year-old Early Childhood Education major. “From middle school
on, I had teachers who really understood the subject and knew
how to teach it. One of my high school math teachers, Mr. Bell,
encouraged me to pursue a career in aeronautics, and I thought
about doing that for a while.”
She also flirted with the idea of becoming a nurse or a
radiologic technologist, and then considered becoming an
architect, another “math-related” field that piqued her interest
because of her involvement with her family’s real estate
appraisal business.
“At Dalton State, I have studied design and drafting, and I’ve
worked for my father drawing houses for his real estate
business,” she says.
But Leonard has decided to become a math teacher herself,
following in the footsteps of Mr. Bell, her seventh grade
teacher Ms. Grant, and others who teach mathematics.
“I feel like the job market is good for math teachers in this
area, and I’d really like to stay close to home. I can always
use my drafting skills to draw houses on the side.” |
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This spring, Leonard’s
field placement is through New Hope Elementary School, where she
will be teaching lessons as she is spending two days each week
working with students in the subjects of language arts and
science.
“This is giving me a good chance to get my feet wet,” she says.
“It will help me make sure that teaching’s what I really want to
do.”
Not that she has any serious doubts. Leonard, who has earned a
3.9 grade point average, was accepted into the education program
in 2007. She expects to graduate in May of 2009 and begin
teaching the following fall. While her ECE degree will enable
her to teach grades K-5, she intends to pursue an “add-on”
middle grades certificate in mathematics, which will allow her
to teach her favorite subject to sixth through eighth graders.
And she also plans to complete the English as a Second Language
(ESOL) endorsement prior graduation.
“I plan to go to graduate school one day,” says Leonard, noting
that she also dreams of being published at some point. “I have
been thinking about writing a math education book to be used by
teacher candidates and classroom teachers to help teach
elementary school students,” she adds.
Leonard says her experience at Dalton State has been
overwhelmingly positive.
At first, the Northwest High School graduate admits that she
wasn’t very involved in school, largely because her part-time
off-campus job took up a lot of time. But as time went on, she
became involved in intramural basketball, and the girls’ team
she played on competed at the state tournament in 2004-05.
Through intramurals, she met her boyfriend Justin Fetzer.
A high-achieving student, Leonard was inducted into the Phi
Theta Kappa honor society and served as co-president during the
2006-2007 academic year. During her tenure, she became involved
with the UNICEF campaign, which raised pocket change to purchase
school and medical supplies for children living in
underprivileged countries.
Currently, Leonard finds time to juggle her studies and field
placement, to jog about nine miles per week, and to work at the
College’s new Fitness Center as a student aide.
In her spare time, she likes to read science fiction and fantasy
novels. A self-admitted Harry Potter fanatic, Leonard admits she
knows “way more than I need to about Harry Potter and J. K.
Rowling.”
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