Southeastern NEWS

                                                       Southeastern Louisiana University
                                           Public Information Office
                                           publicinfo@selu.edu
                                           SLU 880, Hammond, LA 70402
                                           504/549-2341/fax 504-549-2061
    Date: 10/16/00
      Contact:                           Christina Chapple   25

Editors: Photo accompanies release   Please note local interest
SLU STUDENT TEACHERS ARE ALL "SURVIVORS"
     HAMMOND -- The "tribal council" that carried torches into Southeastern Louisiana
University's Teacher Education Center recently didn't have rejection on its mind. "We're all
survivors," Randy Kinsey told 135 of his fellow Southeastern student teachers.
     Kinsey, a non-traditional student from Hammond who is teaching eighth grade United
States history this semester at Ponchatoula Jr. High School, heads the board of directors of the
Southeastern Student Teachers Association. He and the association's officers staged a parody of
the television phenomenon "Survivor" to open a seminar for teachers-in-training on Oct. 6. The
mandatory seminar marked the mid-point of their student teaching experience.
     Dressed in t-shirts proclaiming "I will Survive!," Kinsey and his fellow officers got a
laugh and round of applause from their colleagues as they paraded into the darkened Teacher
Education Center Kiva to the beat of the "Survivor" theme, bearing torches illuminated by
flashlights.
     "We've made it this far and we're not going to vote anybody off," Kinsey said. "We want
everyone to stay right where they are -- in the classroom."
     During the morning-long seminar, the student teachers heard from two educators who
were in their shoes this time last year   first year teachers Cathy Flannery, who teaches third
grade at Lyon Elementary in Covington, and Jeri Frazier, an American History teacher at
Denham Springs High School.
     Donning a jacket turned inside out to reveal a brightly patterned lining and cocking a
baseball hat sideways on her head, Flannery said her "nutty" outfit symbolized how she felt on
the first day of school. 
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STUDENT TEACHERS   Add One
     "I felt as uncoordinated as my outfit," she said. "I thought,'What am I going to do?' and
'Are these children going to listen to me?' And I found that they did, because I 
was prepared."
     She said she survived her first year by learning that both management and flexibility were
her most crucial tools and that the lesson plans, goals and objects she learned to prepare as a
student teacher "are gold. They are the pathway to your success," she said.
     "I got my first paycheck," Flannery said to another round of cheers and applause. She told
the student teachers that when they pocket their first pay, "You will see that you have earned it   
every day -- by the smiles of those children.
     "You all will be successful," she said. "The children are wonderful and I was prepared." 
     Rebecca Day, director of the College of Education and Human Development's Office of
Field Experience, said Southeastern students are teaching this semester in 37 public school
districts or private schools in eight states, including 26 parishes and schools in Louisiana.
     Officers and board members of the Southeastern Student Teachers Association are
Secretary Dixie Joiner of Folsom, Madisonville Elementary; Shari Best of Baton Rouge, River
Oaks Academy; President Randy Kinsey of Hammond, Ponchatoula Jr. High; Star Marks of
Denham Springs, Denham Springs High School; and Cynthia Jackson of Hammond, Eastside
Upper Elementary.                         
                             -SLU-
Press release available online at www.selu.edu./NewsEvents/PublicInfoOffice/newsf00.htm