Introduction

My name is Jonathan Jansky and I am a 23-year-old senior at Winona State University.  Born on September 23, 1986, I am the middle child in a family of 3 siblings.  I graduated from Onalaska High School in 2005, and came straight to Winona.  Throughout my life I have always been a huge sports fan.  Basketball has always been my true love, but just about any other sport will interest me as well.  I started off my collegiate career planning on majoring in business administration; however, about two and a half years into my schooling I switched to business education and am planning on graduating in the spring of 2010.  Since I spent so much time in the school of business, I have earned a minor in business administration as well.

I have had many different experiences interacting with children over the course of my life.  The summer after my senior year in high school I was employed at the local park and rec and helped run a basketball camp for kids ages five to eleven.  I was in charge of setting up drills and making sure they were done correctly by the campers.  I was also a basketball coach at Winona Cotter Middle School the winter of 2005.  I planned and ran practices, coached the games, and also set up traveling tournament schedules.  Lastly, I was able to observe at Holmen Middle School last semester in the LMC.  I checked out books to the students, gave a book talk, and helped them with their classroom homework.  I am also beginning another field experience at the LaCrescent Middle School and hope to get more involved in more business related classes than what was offered at Holmen.

During my field experience at Holmen I learned that it really is important to get to know the students.  Everything goes so much smoother when the kids are willing to open up and speak with you about what is on their mind.  A teacher that does not personalize his/her relationship with the students is doing both themselves and the students a great disservice.

There were a lot of influences that led me to choose the education field.  Many of my good family friends growing up were teachers and I somewhat looked at them as role models as I grew into a young adult.  Also, once I graduated a few of my good friends were just getting teaching jobs and talking about how much they loved it.  Once I joined the education program at WSU and realized that I would be working with kids, it really hit home that this was something I wanted to do.  I love the business field and I love being around kids, so putting them both together seemed like the obvious right thing to do.