Bringing Energy and Excellence to the Classroom and Beyond

0:02 This podcast, Spotlight for Success, is our way of highlighting the incredible success stories happening in education right here in our home state of Georgia. Today, we're thrilled to be joined by Daniel Manning. With Union High School in Henry County School District, he's made a significant impact in the field of social studies education. We're gonna be exploring his journey, insights and the positive impact that he's made for students and teachers. So let's get started. Daniel, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? So my name is Daniel Manning. I was born and raised in Henry County, georgia, so I went through basically the same cluster.

0:42 Union Grove High School was kind of where I ended up at. I went from Union Grove to Kennesaw State. I did history education for four years there. I did student teaching at Sprayberry High School and afterwards I managed to make the jump back to my high school and I've been there for now three years. This is me ongoing for year three. Jumped right in and I've been coaching a bunch of different stuff. I did lacrosse when I was in high school. That was one of the things that was kind of all of a sudden just kind of hit me and was like, hey, I'm going to do that. And then, coming into Union Grove as a teacher, I did boys lacrosse, which I still do now, but I also did girls volleyball for a year.

1:22 So, uh, kind of the hey, we need somebody to step up and fill in the spot, which kind of just is what teaching is in general. So wonderful, kind of just was easy for me to jump in and do that. Now. Was it easy? Absolutely not knowing next to nothing of like more than just the basics of volleyball was challenging. But again, teaching is kind of the same way of you have to go as you go. You can't just sit still and just call it a day. You have to put forth effort every single step of the way, otherwise I mean then the stereotype of history is boring, kind of culminates to everything in life. Yes, and let's talk about that. Daniel, talk about your passions. You know you got thrown into some sports things.

2:05 You're doing social studies, which often happens in the school systems, as you're aware. So what are some of the things, some connections you've made in that process and things that have brought you to what you're currently doing in the field that you've really chosen, instead of being chosen for you within the social studies arena? So I like to say that I chose social studies and everything that kind of went with it, as is teaching. So I knew that when I was going to be a teacher, anything, anything was game. So some of the passions of mine was fun fact going to Kennesaw State I met two very important people to me. One, his name is Dr Charles Wynn. He was one of my like. He was the second class I ever had at Kennesaw State.

2:47 He was US history from 1867 to present and he was really big on teaching is not one-dimensional, teaching is very how you make it, and so he was so energetic and so passionate about it that he actually like, like he tore his knee in class doing wow yeah, he tore his knee apart and he actually have go have surgery and he was still back in the classroom like two days after his surgery. And so that level of passion is what I strive to have, The next one is Dr William Oki. He showed me that you know, history is about the details, you can't just kind of gloss over things. And he showed me, and especially in the writing pages of just you have to be detailed, you have to be consistent, and taking those away from college and bringing them into what I want to do.

3:36 I want to be detail-oriented when I teach. I want to teach kids that the specifics matter. You can't just say this happened on this date, right here, and so one of the biggest things that I always kind of am hitting on with my students, as well as my athletes, is that you have to do things right, the small things, because if you don't, then you're setting yourself up for failure and so on the field, like you have to do what you have to practice what you're planning on doing in the classroom. You have to have good practice work, otherwise when the test rolls around, then you're not going to be prepared. So the whole like memorize it and move on is not what I'm about. I'm about the details as well as just the passion. One of the things that my students know me for is that I will get active in the classroom.

4:18 I have like a bunch of different things that I will do. For example, one that comes to mind is when we talk about the French Revolution in my world history class. I've already prepared it. We're going to go and we're going to talk about how, basically, the estates came and went, and then the king basically just got rid of him, and I'm going to act like the king and I'm going to act like a guillotine is happening and I'm going to be very dramatic and very energetic, but it's because I want that buy-in from the kids. Oh, that's going to bring it for sure. Yeah, and so it's like, okay, how do you engage these kids with the details as well? Because otherwise how are you going to be not boring?

4:59 Oh, yes! so for me with the estates. I'm like I'm going to make it a fun way. I'm not going to tell them we're talking about the estates or anything about the French Revolution and be like all right, cool, let's go with the NFL, let's go with some sort of popular sports right there. And then I translate it over and theyre like okay. Theyre already passionate about the sports, lets relate it back to what we're talking about and it's like hey, it's easy to get invested, you just have to want to do it. That is incredible and I understand you're here at Georgia Council of Social Studies with all these things that you're doing in the classroom. What are you hoping to get out of your kind of reconnaissance, because I understand you'll be presenting in the winter. Is that right? Yeah, I have been asked to present in January and I think I'm going to do it because just some of the things that you learn from places like this.

5:44 So I teach high school but this is for anybody who teaches social studies from kindergarten all the way up to 12th grade and so what I want to do here is I want to learn what are the different ways that we can do social studies, because, as I said, doing the same thing over and over gets really boring, and so some of the sessions here are like simulations, quick engagement, uh some of the different ways and strategies that you can use to get kids to buy in more or, you know, not have things f all apart as consistently, or what are some new tools, like AI is kind of the new push for education, where kids are using it to kind of cut corners, but also educators are using it to make things more detailed, more wonderful, and so I want to get more ways of doing social studies that are not just more effective but are more fun, because everybody has different ideas.

6:35 It's not like math, where there's one formula and you can teach fun ways to memorize the formula. This is fun ways to learn different things in history. That is awesome, daniel. It sounds like you're going to get a lot out of this conference that you'll be able to bring back and then bring back to other people here or wherever you're presenting in the future, so that's fantastic. Well, thank you for being here with ABC Spotlight for Success here at the GCSS Georgia Council for Social Studies, and we look forward to hearing more about your future. Thank you. Thank you.