Iola native returns to middle school

While students invariably hope their assignments come back clean — no wrong answers — David Cunningham doesn’t mind seeing his students make an error or two.
“Mistake-making is part of the learning process,” Cunningham explained. “Mistakes can be treated like a bad thing, but they shouldn’t be punished. Sometimes we learn best from our mistakes.”
Being a part of the learning process so appealed to Cunningham, he decided to become a teacher.
Cunningham, who turns 24 on Tuesday, is preparing for his first year as a seventh-grade science instructor at Iola Middle School.
Starting his teaching career in his native Iola is a dream come true, Cunningham said.
“This was my first choice,” he said. “I didn’t think I was going to be able to because you never know about job openings.”
But when the teaching position opened after the 2014-15 school year, Iola High science instructor Vince Coons notified Cunningham of the opportunity.
“That was a great help,” he said. “I applied and got the job. It’s always good to be home. I was living in Lawrence for four years. I liked living there a lot, but this feels like home. I feel comfortable here.”
The position combines Cunningham’s two loves — helping others learn, and science — even though he entered college at the University of Kansas not knowing what his career ambitions held.
“I had no idea what I wanted to do,” he recalled. “I tried out a lot of different things. It was when I helped tutor classmates, that I fell in love with teaching.
“But I didn’t really know what I wanted to teach,” he continued. “It was between history and science. I took a geology 101 course and just fell in love with the science behind it.”
Cunningham is continuing a family tradition with his new job.
Both of his parents, Iolans Glen and Betty Cunningham, taught, as did his grandmother.
“I have quite a few cousins who teach, too,” he said.
Meanwhile, older sister Elizabeth, a student at Emporia State University, plans to become a student teacher this fall.
“I just always felt like teaching was one of the most important jobs in the world, really,” Cunningham said. “You have all these kids who need somebody to be a good influence on them. A teacher is a really important part of their lives.”

CUNNINGHAM returns to a school he roamed as a student not long ago, with many of his former instructors now his peers and colleagues.
“It’s different,” he said. “I think it’s great I know a lot of the staff, and I can talk with them and relate with them from day one. I’m not intimidated by that.”
Teaching middle-schoolers carries an appeal as well.
“The kids this age are a lot of fun to work with,” he said. “They have a lot of great ideas, and they just really enjoy learning.
“There are so many different ways you can teach science,” Cunningham continued. “In the classroom, not everybody learns the same way. There are lots of different types of learning. It’s my job to be able to incorporate as many learning strategies as possible: audio, visual, spacial, kinesthetic, whatever. That would be the ideal learning environment. Science isn’t like math, where there’s a straightforward answer, a right and wrong way. (Science) has a lot of experimenting and going back. I love that part.”