From Waverly To Doane
Connor Strange
Staff Writer
There’s no question that the teachers of Waverly High School do a fine job educating the district’s students.
However, not every schoolteacher here brings his or her academic skill to a college course at Doane College.
Language arts teachers Erin Konecky and Blake Tobey both have a class at Doane’s Crete campus-- Konecky’s in the fall, Tobey’s in the spring.
“Doctor Linda Kalbach (Associate Professor of Education) sent Mr. Tobey and me an email and said that there were openings for a class and we could teach them,” Konecky said. “It just worked out that he wanted the spring one and I wanted the fall one.”
Tobey’s pupils at Doane are in their sophomore year of college, while Konecky won’t take them into her class until their senior year. With that gap of time between the two, the subjects they cover vary quite a lot.
“The kids he’s got right now I’ll have in a year and a half from now,” Konecky said. “Mine are student teaching, his are just sophomores. He deals with a lot of writing strategies, and more than anything, mine is to give them a place to vent and help them with specific things they’re struggling with right now.”
Konecky’s class doesn’t take much time from the students’ semester, only containing four separate class meetings in which the students get together.
“It’s a one-credit English methods course. We only meet four times during the semester for two to three hours,” Konecky said. “It’s just to provide them support while they’re student teaching.”
Not only is her course rather short compared to a regular collegiate class, but the overall feel of her course is quite relaxed.
“It’s a lot more laid back. A lot of them will come with food. It’s got the atmosphere of a very informal class,” Konecky said.
Although it’s less structured than a traditional class, it still focuses on some important challenges presented to teachers-in-training. In her course, they deal with the issues of uncooperative or negligent teachers, thick-skulled students and other problems that plague student teachers.
Despite the more advanced age group Konecky teaches at Doane College and their will to participate in the class, she says that the collegiates aren’t all that different from kids in high school.
“The big difference is the students in the college course want to be there a little bit more,” Konecky said, “but their attention spans are just as short as highschoolers’.”
The excitement of Konecky’s pupils at Doane help her get a fresh perspective and a bit of a kickstart for a new day at WHS.
“I really like having a different viewpoint and seeing kids that are going to be teachers; that’s really fun to watch the kids and their enthusiasm. It rejuvenates me for these classes,” Konecky said.
However, teaching betwixt more than one school is taxing; time at home diminishes as the Doane courses are piled on top of the already-busy speech teacher’s schedule.
“I don’t feel like I have enough time to focus on school or even my home responsibilities,” Konecky said. “It’s only one night a month in the fall, but those weeks I’d have to work late on Monday night and then I’d work late at Doane on Wednesday. Two or three nights a week I wasn’t home. Even though it’s not very often, it’s a time commitment.”
Though the classes Konecky is undertaking may be a large time sink, the pursuit of further knowledge and a love for teaching get her through the day.
