By Devin Parish
I am a Senior at Nordonia High School. For my senior internship, I decided to work with Nordonia Hills News. Julie D’Aloiso and I came up with the idea to create a 5 part series about Nordonia High School staff. The 5 people who were chosen were: Mrs. Spellman, Mrs. Wenzel, Mr. Knight, Officer Nicholl, and Ms. Archer.
Each was chosen for a reason. One reason is that all 5 of them are different from each other when it comes to what they do at Nordonia High School. The other being more specific to each person: Ms. Archer because she worked at Key West High School for 10 years prior to becoming a principal at Nordonia. Mrs. Wenzel because she is the current graduating classes counselor and has been here just as long as they have. Mrs. Spellman because she is a senior advisor and does a lot of behind the scenes work with all senior activities. Officer Nicholl because many students know of and love him but may not know his story or thought process. Mr. Knight because he is a newer teacher and we wanted the perspective of someone who hasn’t been teaching at Nordonia for a long time.
We wanted to know how: teachers, counselors, officers, and principals felt about the classes they offered, and just Nordonia High School in general. It was also interesting to learn what it was like for them when they were young and to compare their high school to Nordonia.
Last week we started out with the podcast with Officer Nicholl (in case you missed it, check it out) and this week we are talking to Mr. Knight.
Mr.Knight is a business teacher at Nordonia High School for 5 years. He attended Kent Roosevelt High School, during his high school years he said that he had phenomenal English teachers that inspired him to become one himself. He went to Kent State to take English classes but ran into problems when he found out he had to do mostly reading and writing, which weren’t two of his strongest points. Without knowing what it was he wanted to do, he decided to go into business to see where it would take him. He ended up getting a degree in marketing and a minor in business management.
He became a business teacher because his undergraduate was business so all he would need was to take the MAT program. He later took the MAT program at Kent State and continued on to pursue his dream of becoming a teacher. After 7 more years of teaching, 6 being at Copley, he was given a chance to become a business teacher at Nordonia thanks to Mrs.Barwidi, who is good friends with his wife. She told his wife that there is a business position opening because the former teacher is retiring and asked if she is interested. She wasn’t interested in the position but Mr.Knight however saw it has an opportunity. Copley had three business classes but didn’t have enough students taking them, and with Mr.Knight being the newest teacher, he would be the first one out if needed.
After three interviews with Mr. Wright, Mr. Bromen, and Supt. Dr. Joe Clark, he received a phone call not even 2 hours after the interview offering him the job. As for the people who inspired and pushed him to do better, they were his parents. Even though his parents were divorced they were still around for him: supporting and helping him whenever they could. His high school experience could be described as a standard school back in the 80’s to 90’s with the use of actual typewriters for typing class or having only one computer in the whole building. He himself even calls himself “old school” and not a “tech guy”; but, says it’s the opposite for his best friend who is the tech director for Willoughby schools. He believes the true definition of technology: “it becomes technology when your grandma can do it, with no problem.”
Click the green arrow to listen to the podcast…
