Mr. Manns has been out of the classroom for about ten years, but when a spot for a Special Education teacher opened up out of the blue at Harding, he decided to give teaching one more shot before he retired for good. “They actually offered my wife [who teaches at Tri-Rivers] the position… she couldn’t accept it, so I told them… ‘Hey, I got a masters degree in Special Ed!’ It was kind of a joke… but they called me a couple days later, offered me the position… so that’s how I got here,” he explains in an interview. Just before he came to Harding, Mr. Manns was getting ready to end his time working at the prison, so it all worked out perfectly for him.
But before he worked at the prison, about 10 years ago, he worked at Lima City Schools as a Special Ed teacher for close to 20 years. He at first had a degree in Social Studies, but when Lima City offered the position for Special Ed, Mr. Manns went back to school to get a degree in that instead, as the job was well-paying.
When he was in high school, he had a very motivational teacher who encouraged him to go to college and get a degree. He had never thought about going to college before, as he was the first in his family to do so. “She was very positive and that really helped me,” Manns remarks.
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