Student Profile: Patrick Johnston
Current home: West Palm Beach, FL
Age: 27
Program: MA
Year in the program: finished second year
Fill us in on your background. Schools attended, work situation, etc.
I graduated with my BS in Secondary Education Language Arts and a minor in Studio Art from the University of Alabama (Roll Tide!). Prior to college, I attended boarding school at the Culver Academies; a huge influence on my love of literature thanks to Dr. Richard Davies and Candy Koehn. These two remarkable teachers served as my muses to become a teacher myself. Currently, I find myself living in sunny South Florida with my beautiful wife Cortney teaching ninth and tenth grade English at Cardinal Newman High School. On top of teaching, I am a Department Co-Chair and Boys Head Lacrosse Coach.
What led you to the School of Letters program?
I have always had the goal of continuing my education, but I failed to find the time once I found myself in the “real world.” With teaching and coaching during the year, SOL is the perfect program.
What writing/academic projects are you working on currently?
I am heavily involved in trying to keep pace with my students in all of the reading I assign them.
Favorite class so far at Sewanee:
Toss up… Bible as Lit or Spencer.
What would be your fantasy class or workshop at Sewanee, and who would teach?
Anything with the legendary Angus Fletcher, maybe something on Dante’s Inferno or William Blake.
What advice would you give to any prospective students?
Bring your drinking shoes and a set of bocce…kidding. DO NOT plan anything the week after classes end (i.e. getting married or taking twenty-five students to lacrosse camp thirty hours from home).
What are you reading these days?
Bear’s Boys by Eli Gold (what?! It’s football season) and Le Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory.
Tags: current student, patrick, Student Profiles, teachers
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