John Mooneyham is an elementary education faculty member at ETSU’s Sevierville Campus.
Mooneyham also participates in a program called the 2 + 2 Cohort Program, which allows students to complete 60 hours at a community college before transferring to either ETSU’s main campus or the Sevierville campus.
Mooneyham graduated in 2008 with a degree in secondary education and took a position teaching English as a second language in South Korea.
“I moved to South Korea and began working for an academy and we taught everyone from Pre-K all the way up into middle school and high school,” said Mooneyham. “And so I ended up being the head teacher for that program for close to a year and worked a lot with the elementary and middle school students and enjoyed that age group more than I thought I would.”
Mooneyham got his master’s degree after he got back from South Korea. He works with supervising, instructing, recruiting and advising teachers and student teachers at the campus currently. He said he enjoys seeing student teachers grow into their classrooms and change from shy, quiet people to commanding a classroom quickly.
“It’s a rewarding field because I feel like I can go beyond teaching students in a classroom, and I can see how they affect change in their communities and how they draw in interest from students,” said Mooneyham.
Though Mooneyham is in Sevierville, he is glad that people at the main campus in Johnson City are thinking about and curious about the education program and the Sevierville campus. Many of the school faculty are currently reaching out across school districts and talking to them about their staffing for the student teachers here at ETSU.
“Once the building and position in Sevierville became available it was just a great fit for me to still be involved in education to kind of effect change and do it in an area not only that I’m familiar with, but I care about too,” said Mooneyham.
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