ERIC BOKINSKY - Language Arts

Oakdale Middle School
Ijamsville, MD

EDUCATION
AA - Worchester-Wicomico Community College
BS - Salisbury State University
Master's equivalency - McDaniel College (reading specialist)

EXPERIENCE & CERTIFICATION
Fifth Grade / Deer Crossing Elementary School - 1997-2001
Seventh Grade LA / Oakdale Middle School - 2001-present

Advanced Professional Certificate (APC) - elementary education,  middle school language arts,  middle school mathematics

MY PHILOSOPHY ON TEACHING

Make school fun.  If students have fun,  they'll WANT to go to school.  If they want to go to school,  they're bound to learn!

HOBBIES

• home improvements
• hunting
• fishing
• golf
• running (finished the 2007 Marine Corps Marathon in 3:59:24!)
• sharing my love of reading with my children and students

FAVORITE AUTHORS & BOOKS

     Adult Literature

• Nelson DeMille - The Lion's Game,  Charm School,  Night Fall
• Tom Clancy - The Red Rabbit,  Red Storm Rising
• Vince Flynn - Term Limits,  Transfer of Power,  Executive Powers,  Memorial Day,  Consent to Kill
• Mitch Albom - Five People You Meet In Heaven

     Juvenile Literature

• Jerry Spinelli - Crash,  Stargirl,  Wringer
• Richard Peck - Here Lies the Librarian,  The Teacher's Funeral
• Anthony Horowitz - the Alex Rider Series (Scorpia is the best of the series),  Gatekeepers series
• Edward Bloor - Tangerine
• Gordon Korman - Everest and Dive series
• the Harry Potter series - a former student insisted I read them,  thanks "Ambah!"

INTERESTING EXPERIENCE
My service to our nation,  including multiple deployments,  has galvanized the love I feel for my country and the appreciation I feel for the men and women who serve - our nation, our community and our school. "You don't have to wear a uniform to have honor." There are heroes everywhere.

FAVORITE QUOTES
"Whether you believe you will fail or succeed, you're right." Attitude is everything.

"Courage is not measured by those who fought and did not fall,  but by those who fought,  fell and rose again."  -author unknown

"What we do in life echoes in eternity."  -Maximus from Gladiator

"It's not the mountain we conquer,  but ourselves."  Sir Edmund Hillary