Letter from Lianna Nix
Student Commendation of Georgia College and State University's Teacher Education Program
As a nontraditional senior in the Georgia College and State University Middle Grades Cohort, I would like to heartily commend GCSU's teacher preparation program. As a 38-year-old mother of four teenagers when I entered the program, I honestly thought that the Cohort would be only modestly beneficial to me as a future teacher in the public schools. After all, I had home schooled four children for several years, taught grades 6-8 for almost a year in a private school, taught many kinds of materials during my involvement with several ministries, and substitute taught in a middle and high school for a full year prior to re-entering college after a 19-year absence. Besides, I thought, I am a natural teacher-I am often teaching in my sleep.
The truth is, GCSU's School of Education has challenged and stretched me in previously inconceivable ways. Specifically, what amazes me most is the high level of expectation, thoughtfulness, reasonableness, and passion with which most of the staff unceasingly work toward the end that we become well prepared as middle level educators. I have been consistently and deeply impressed with the way we in the middle grades cohort have been encouraged and expected to develop professionally and personally, to become rational, reflective practitioners, to problem-solve, and to take on the challenges of education middle level learners, and by the dedication of the faculty and staff to cultivate such excellent professionals.
Those professors who have worked with me (especially my mentor-leader, Dr. Karynne Kleine) have demonstrated extraordinary conviction, integrity, enthusiasm, knowledge, and commitment to us and to our profession. They have modeled, guided, coached, and facilitated our development as caring, passionate, thoughtful architects of change in the field of education. I am overwhelming persuaded that nowhere else could I have received the quality of teacher preparation that I have been privileged to experience at GCSU.
Lianna Nix
Senior, Middle Grades Cohort, 2001-2002
Georgia College and State University