{"id":2005,"date":"2020-06-23T00:00:58","date_gmt":"2020-06-23T00:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.truman.edu\/commspotlight\/?p=2005"},"modified":"2020-06-15T17:03:21","modified_gmt":"2020-06-15T17:03:21","slug":"lesko20200623","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.truman.edu\/commspotlight\/2020\/06\/23\/lesko20200623\/","title":{"rendered":"Shannon (Kelley) Lesko"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Shannon (Kelley) Lesko (2020)<\/p><\/div>\n

Shannon (Kelley) Lesko is a high school English teacher in the Parkway School District<\/a>. She lives in South City, St. Louis with her husband Matt, their one-year-old son, Luca, and their dog Kona.\u00a0 Believe it or not, she can still be found paling around with all of her same Truman friends.<\/p>\n

What year did you graduate and what was your concentration?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I graduated in May 2011 with a concentration in public communication<\/a>. I also double-majored in English<\/a> with a concentration in British literature.<\/p>\n

What extra-\/co-curricular activities did you do?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I was president of Delta Zeta<\/a>, a member of our Greek Community Relations Board, a Greek Life<\/a> intern, an intern in the Admission Office<\/a>, and a building supervisor at the Rec Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Did you go to grad school? If so, where?\u00a0 Was it immediately after you left Truman or did you wait?\u00a0 Why?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I attended grad school at Truman in the MAE program (Master of Arts in Education<\/a>) immediately following graduation, as it was my goal to become a high school English teacher, something I couldn\u2019t do without that graduate degree.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Shannon with her husband Matt and son Luca (2019).<\/p><\/div>\n

What was your first job after graduation?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I got a job immediately after my student teaching, teaching 9-12 English in the Fort Zumwalt School District<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What work do you do\/What are you doing now?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I worked in Fort Zumwalt for 6 years before getting a job in the Parkway School District<\/a>, where I\u2019ve been for 2 years, still teaching high school English.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Shannon the Greek Week Queen (2011).<\/p><\/div>\n

How has your Liberal Arts\/COMM education helped you?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I am a huge proponent of a liberal arts education as I think it\u2019s made me a more well-rounded person, citizen, and teacher. I love incorporating various other disciplines into my English classes to appeal to different types of students. Communication specifically has helped me think about audience – how easy it is to be misunderstood if your words or tone isn\u2019t correct: how the intent of your words matter, but how there\u2019s much more to it than that, how difficult it is to take back a statement, how our media uses languages to manipulate particular audiences. I try to pass these ideas along to my students as well.<\/p>\n

Which class did you dislike at the time you took it, but now you\u2019re grateful you took it?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I went into Truman thinking I would be a journalist. Upon taking radio broadcast and talking a lot with my advisors (James Cianciola<\/a> and Marilyn Yaquinto), I realized that journalism isn\u2019t where I was meant to be. However, it gave me a great deal of respect for all of the journalists out in our world!<\/p>\n

What was your greatest accomplishment at Truman?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Being recognized as a \u201cWho\u2019s Who Among American Colleges and Universities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why is Truman a good place for a student to study?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Truman is my home away from home and where I truly found myself. The combination of a small campus, a small town, a liberal arts education, and a multitude of extracurricular opportunities is why I chose it, but why I love it was how many leadership opportunities were afforded to me. I think in 4 years I was able to branch out into many different areas on campus, forming relationships with diverse groups of students, faculty, and staff, and making a large impact in the organizations I became part of.<\/p>\n

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Shannon (3rd fr left) hanging out on campus with friends during Homecoming (2012).<\/p><\/div>\n

What would you say a COMM student should absolutely<\/u> do while at Truman?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Take a class with James Cianciola<\/a>! He changed my outlook on so many things about pop culture and media.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Shannon and Matt enoying their vacation (2017).<\/p><\/div>\n

What advice would you give someone who wants to go into the same line of work as you<\/span><\/strong>?<\/p>\n

Be ready to work harder than you\u2019ve ever worked before, become more humble than you\u2019ve ever been, and always assume the best of every student that comes your way.<\/p>\n

What do you miss most about campus\/Kirksville?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Walking through campus and never feeling alone because I was surrounded by so many incredible people.<\/p>\n

If you could come back to Truman and teach a class for a semester, what would be its title and what would it be about?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I would love to teach a class about communication with students. As a teacher, your words, body language, speech, tone, etc. make a big difference in which students you are able to connect with.<\/p>\n

What did we not ask that you think is important for people to know?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Many people thought that COMM was an \u201ceasy out\u201d for a major, and I heard a lot of jokes about it over my time at Truman, but so many of those same people say that communication is one of the most difficult parts of their career.<\/p>\n

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Shannon (front row, 2nd fr left) and her \u0394\u0396 sisters at graduation (2011).<\/p><\/div>\n

If you would like to learn more of Shannon’s story, you can follow her on Instagram<\/a>, or Twitter<\/a>.<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

If <\/span><\/strong>you want to learn more about the Department of Communication, contact us!<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shannon (Kelley) Lesko is a high school English teacher in the Parkway School District. She lives in South City, St. Louis with her husband Matt, their one-year-old son, Luca, and their dog Kona.\u00a0 Believe it or not, she can still be found paling around with all of her same Truman friends. What year did you … Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50608],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-watdn"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.truman.edu\/commspotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.truman.edu\/commspotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.truman.edu\/commspotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.truman.edu\/commspotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.truman.edu\/commspotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2005"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.truman.edu\/commspotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2007,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.truman.edu\/commspotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2005\/revisions\/2007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.truman.edu\/commspotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.truman.edu\/commspotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.truman.edu\/commspotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}