My Name

Hi and welcome,

My name is Anthony Atwood and I am a single subject credential candidate at California State University San Marcos. I would like to share my story about how I received my nickname Mr. Tony.  about 10 years ago around my 19th birthday I started working in the Juvenile Court and Community Schools as and Teachers Assistant. I was working in a Summit Program in Vista. Most of my students consisted of zero tolerance offenders, or were on probation for gang affiliation. The first day I walked in the door, I introduced myself to the teacher and we got started with the day. Before class, I was outside supervising students and making introductions. one of my students walked up to me and said "who are you?" i replied "I'm Anthony Atwood and I'm your new TA" to which he replied "Oh so your name is Tony then I'm am going to call you Mr. Tony" I wanted to correct him by saying that my name was in fact Mr. Atwood, but as I thought about it, and Mr. Tony had a nice ring to it, so I never corrected him or any of the other students.

When I went home that evening I told my family about the story and they all laughed, and then started calling me Mr. Tony. From that day forward, my family has not stopped calling me Mr. Tony every chance they get. Up until the day I started the credential program my students have all refereed to me as Mr. Tony.

I decided to drop my nickname when I entered the credential program because I was going to become a professional at that stage in my career, up until that point I had been a paraprofessional, so I had a more relaxed style of teaching. I felt that making the change was necessary for my career, however I will still go by Tony as my first name. I guess I could never really bring myself to totally get rid of such a wonderful gift my students had given to me and now it will be carried on for the rest of my life, so please call me Tony.