Teacher Appreciation - Captain Holman

By: Casey Robinson on Feb 24, 2020 | Categories: General, Academic

I am teaching Spanish 1, Spanish 2, English 7 and High School 101 at Camden Military Academy and have enjoyed my experiences at CMA and living in South Carolina. I am a magna cum laude graduate of Bowdoin College, with high honors in psychobiology, and have also achieved the equivalent of a Spanish major though classes taken with Santa Barbara City College and the University of Wisconsin. I especially enjoy sharing my experiences and knowledge of Spanish having lived and taught for 17 years in Mexico.

I am also helping out with Robotics and ACT/SAT monitoring and transport on assigned exam dates and am an assistant track coach for this springs track and field season, primarily supervising the field events of shot put, long jump and discus throw. I have served on 2 Eagle Scout review boards with CMA cadets achieving their Eagle rank, as I also am an Eagle Scout having participated in scouting in my youth. On several weekends this year I have also helped out people with intellectual disabilities in the Camden community by taking them shopping, to Swan Lake in Sumter and to some community events such as the Revolutionary War Field Days event.

In Spanish 1 we have covered several grammatical topics such as the alphabet, basic greetings, numbers 0-100, present tense verb conjugations, the verbs ser, tener, gustar, ir, jugar, physical descriptions of people, gender and number agreement between nouns and adjectives, pronouns, questions words, cultural topics related to Spain, Puerto Rico, Texas and Puerto Rico among other topics. In Spanish 2 we have covered the alphabet, greetings, numbers up to a million, the verbs ser, estar, sentirse, volver, pensar, among several other verbs, affirmative and negative informal commands, vocabulary related to going shopping, clothing, the present and preterite tense conjugatiions, reflexive verbs, cultural topics about Argentina, Mexico, and Florida among other topics. Both Spanish levels have been introduced to episodes of the Destinos video series to further their vocabulary of conversational Spanish and strengthen their listening skills and abilities to understand various accents in Spanish as actors are native speakers from Spain, Mexico, Argentina and Puerto Rico.

My 7th grade English class, the students are learning to improve their writing skills by becoming more proficient in grammar, spelling, word order and have written many essays on a variety of topics.

My High School 101 students have read about, discussed and written several essays related to topics such as time management, organizational skills, study skills, tips for being successful in school and in life, community service options, relationships with friends, upperclassmen etc. among other topics.