Student teaching, planning a wedding or building a house would be a lot for anyone to handle separately. This year, two Bluffton students, Morganne Faler and Alyssa Hornback, are taking on all three at the same time.
Morganne Faler
Faler, a double major in early childhoood education and intervention specialist, is currently student teaching at Kenton High School to earn her intervention specialist licensure. On a day-to-day basis, she plans and teaches two classes, helps students complete assignments, co-teaches two classes, attends meetings, grades papers and helps meet various other student needs.
“My favorite part of student teaching is connecting with my students and motivating them to learn,” Faler said. “I love seeing their progress.”
Faler has been engaged to her fiancé, Kyle Ackley, since July 4, 2018. Their wedding is set for Aug. 9, 2019, in Jackson Center, Ohio.
Faler said the proposal came as a huge surprise.
“He surprised me by inviting both of our families over to his family’s barn,” Faler said. “His mom took me to help her out at the fairgrounds. When we got back, I walked into the barn and he was down on one knee. After he proposed, our families came out from behind the combines. I was so shocked and excited!”
Between planning the wedding and student teaching, Faler doesn’t have a lot of extra time. She leaves for Kenton High School around 7:30 a.m. and stays until roughly 3:10 p.m. on weekdays. Once home, she helps her parents with supper, creates lesson plans, completes homework or plans the wedding. Faler and Ackley also attend premarital counseling.
Faler already has many of the big details for the wedding planned out, including the venue, photographer, church and dress. She said her list is down to smaller items, like ordering invitations, getting decorations and making the registry.
“My sister just got married Dec. 22, so we were able to see a preview of what we want our day to be like,” Faler said. “We still need to order our wedding bands and plan the specific details of the whole wedding day.”
On top of all of this, the two are also working on getting permits to build a house on Ackley’s family farm. They started the process in October and hope to start building in the next few months.
Faler said she is able to keep up with everything by carefully managing her time and focusing on what she has to do each day.
“There is definitely never a dull moment, but I enjoy doing both at the same time,” Faler said. “It’s all about time management. I get all of my work done for student teaching first, and then spend most of my free time wedding planning.”
Alyssa Hornback
Hornback, a history AYA major and volleyball player, has been engaged to Jared Sleutz, a Bluffton graduate, since Aug. 4, 2018. Their wedding is scheduled for July 20, 2019. After the proposal, Hornback only had a week to begin wedding planning before moving back to campus for volleyball. She used the week to accomplish as much as she could, and now only the little details, such as flowers, remain.
“I live five hours from here, so we did all the big stuff while I was home,” Hornback said. “Over the summer I got my photographer, my cake, my venue and the big stuff like that. Over Christmas break, I got my engagement pictures done, and I got my wedding dress so that was a lot of fun. I just picked out my bridesmaid dresses yesterday.”
Hornback is also student teaching at Shawnee High School in Lima, Ohio, where she works with a sophomore U.S. studies class and a senior-level psychology class. Currently, Hornback teaches a couple of periods a day, but she will eventually work up to seven weeks of complete control of the classroom all day.
Hornback said working with the high schoolers is her favorite part of student teaching.
“I want to make a difference in the high schooler’s lives,” Hornback said. “I didn’t have a great high school experience myself. It was pretty good, but there were some things where if I could have had a teacher there for me, it would have been different, so that’s partly why I like to work with high school students.
Hornback and Sleutz are building a house next to Sleutz’s parents house. She said they finalized the blueprints last week and hope to break ground in March.
Trying to juggle so many things at once has been difficult for Hornback, she said.
“It’s hard because I can’t make decisions very well, so I find myself staying up late making decisions on the wedding and then realizing I still have to make my lessons for tomorrow or the next day. It’s definitely time consuming and stressful,” Hornback said. “Student teaching just by itself is rewarding but also just a lot. To add [wedding planning] to it is definitely time-consuming. I don’t have much of a life right now.”
Despite the challenges the busy schedule brings, Hornback said the support of her family and fiancé are getting her through it. Her mom has taken a big role in planning for the wedding, while Sleutz has made a lot of decisions on the house.
“I’m having to deal with all of this, but I have people who have been helping me,” Hornback said. “They’ve been patient with me, so I’m thankful for that.”
