Her Story
About Jana
I began my career in education with a degree in early childhood and elementary education, teaching second grade for 7 years, then first grade for 3 years where I taught students reading, which was very rewarding. After a year teaching third grade, the superintendent asked me to move to high school and teach biology because my master's in education had a lot of emphasis in science. I taught 9th through 12th grade biology and environmental science for a year and a half. Then our business teacher, who was a member of the National Guard, asked to be deployed to Iraq. She was over the yearbook, and I had experience in that from my high school years, so they asked me to fill in her position until the end of the year. She ended up putting in for an extension, so I went and took my praxis in business and taught business for 18 years. I loved it. I immediately started teaching concurrent credit courses through SAU Tech, so students were able to earn up to 18 hours of college credit while taking my high school classes. I also served as the FBLA advisor and took students to district, state, and national conferences because that, to me, was the most rewarding - watching our students learn while I had them in class, but also watching them expand and build on their relationships that they could use to take them to the next level once they graduated. I keep up with all of my students and see where they are, and I just love getting back with them and looking at the career they're in and the leadership roles that they serve currently. During my business teaching time, I received different awards, like state business teacher of the year, then regional CTE Teacher of the Year, and then went to Nationals where I was top 5. After feeling like I'd been doing business for a while, I believe change is necessary and I welcome change, so I went back to college and got a master's in school counseling. For 2 or 3 years, I did high school business as well as elementary counseling to mentor the new business teachers, and for the last 2 years I've done just elementary counseling.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Jana
01What do you attribute your success to?
I would say my most notable achievement has been my students - watching them go on to achieve great things and the roles and the positions that they are in. That's the most rewarding for me. I've been in education my entire life because I watched it through the eyes of my mother, who was a teacher. I saw the integrity and the relationships that she built with her students that carried over into their adult life, and that helped me realize how important education is and the relationships that you build with people so that they can be successful in their lives. I keep up with all of my students and see where they are, and I just love getting back with them and looking at the career they're in and the leadership roles that they serve currently. I say it could be due partly to what the experiences they had while they were in high school.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
What I would say to someone who was just starting out in education is, you need to love it. You need to love children, you need to love building those outside relationships with parents, family, community, and passing that on to your students, because it will show through the students. Respect is very, very important in your classroom, to show respect to your students, and you will, in turn, get respect back from them, and to build those relationships with your students and your families and community. And just love it, just have fun. Having done it almost 31 years, you want it to feel like you're not really working. Like, you're excited about going to work, that it's fun, that, to look forward to it, to get up every morning saying, man, this is going to be a great day. And if someone were coming into it new, that is the outlook I would want them to have, to know that you get up saying, this is gonna be a great day, and you're gonna make a difference.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Education is a field that a lot of people are getting out of now because of all of the different pressures and situations. If you sit down and think about it, as a person coming into education right now, it is a completely different world than what it was 30 years ago - so many different rules, regulations. It's very important to stay in relationships with community and parents and other outside stakeholders because they need to be able to understand the importance of education at home and try to get them to get on board with all of the different laws and regulations that are being passed. Before I became a counselor, I myself didn't realize the backstory, the things that a counselor does that other people may not realize that falls into the scope of helping with students. Mental health is so important. Without mental health, then you're not going to have the academics if they have other things going on outside of school - you've got to focus on that first.
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