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Paul English

"Those that fail to learn from History are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana

 

My name is Mr. Paul English.  I love being a  part of the very dynamic staff here at Atchison County Community High School as a SocialStudies teacher.  I am excited to be a part of this great community and here with these students.  Having been a member of a military family, I have lived in many places around the United States, including in New England near where my family is from.  (This also helps to explain my being a life-long Boston Red Sox fan!)  I graduated from Kansas State University in 2001 with a degree in History and a minor in
Japanese language.  Following that graduation, I got a job with the JET Programme and moved to Kanagawa, Japan where I taught English at 3 high schools.  Late in 2008 I returned to Kansas to return to school and get my teaching license.  

 

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me with questions or comments!

Expectations of Classroom Conduct/Parent Letter

 

             


  

This is a line I first heard in the 1986 Clint Eastwood movie, "Heartbreak Ridge".  Glenn Knight cites this as one of the unofficial mottos of the Marine Corps.  "An unofficial mantra of the Marine Corps based on the fact that the Corps generally received Army hand-me-downs and the troops were poorly equipped. Despite this, the Marine Corps has been successful mostly because of the creativity of its people and their success-based attitude (Unofficial Unabridged Dictionary for Marines)."

Throughout my own life and through many years as a student, I've known periods where I was unclear about what to do - I didn't know the best way to achieve my own goals.  Probably the time in my life where this was most evident, was when I moved to Japan.  While I had taken nearly 4 years of Japanese language courses in college, I quickly found that communication was a challenge.  I had a choice - give up or improvise, adapt, and overcome.  While it was challenging, I found that it was the mistakes I made and by learning from them that were the most valuable to me.  It was in conversations where I made myself look foolish by saying something wrong, that I learned the most and began to be able to sound more and more fluent.

Within the context of the classroom, I am always available to help students out.  I want to be a resource for students in their learning and their attempt to understand the material.  That being said, I will not simply give students the 'answers'.  In fact, I've tried very hard to create assignments where the 'right answer' is the one that is best argued and contains logic and a rationale derived from solid sources.  I'll gladly point students in the direction of the sources where answers can be found.  I'll shine a light on the path.  It is up to the student to find their way on their own path.  It's how we travel that path of learning that usually has the greatest impact on our success.  As Ralph Waldo Emerson is often quoted for saying, "Life is a journey, not a destination."

An article from Life As A Human

Citation:
Knight, Glenn B. "Unofficial, Unabridged Dictionary For Marines - An Attempt to Capture the Lexicon of the United States                                   Marine Corps." Unofficial Unabridged Dictionary for Marines. Glenn B. Night, 2009. Web. 17 Aug. 2014.