Antioch Community High School has a wonderful team of English teachers who have been working together here at ACHS for many years. Through the many long days of teaching, lesson planning, or endless meetings these teachers have formed unbreakable bonds that help each other get through the day. These friendships can carry on well beyond their years of teaching at ACHS.
Jim Hellen has worked at ACHS teaching English for 21 years and has created plenty of personal friendships with his fellow colleagues.
“I would say, [we get along] in general, through our love of literature and teaching,” Hellen said. “We are very collaborative with lesson plans during our team meetings or free periods.”
Hellen is amazed when he looks back on how close and synergetic the entire English department is. Even after all the years of teaching, they continue to help and learn from each other. When former English department chair, Dee Andershock, who worked with Hellen, threw an end-of-the-year party that he thinks about every year. Everyone is just relaxing and having fun together outside of work. As Hellen is retiring after this year so those will be bonds and memories to cherish for a long time.
“There seemed to be a level of comfort and camaraderie,” Hellen said. “She would always have the end of the year party, and she lived right on a lake, that was really good.”
Through the leadership of ACHS members, allowed these individuals to get to know one another outside of literature.
Although it is great when a department can get along and function smoothly, seeing friendships bloom from what was originally an unknown coworker to someone they can share personal issues and success creates such a flawless department.
Mary Easton is another English teacher who has taught at ACHS for more than two decades. During her teaching, she has become immensely close with the other English teachers in a personal as well as professional way.
“Last night, I was on three different text threads with the other [English] teachers, we were talking about our lives,” Easton said. “ I definitely have relationships with people in the English department that are more than just co-workers.”
Easton talks to her friends about everything, from the littlest of issues to the biggest of accomplishments, they converse about it all. Easton has an immense trust and loyalty to these confidants so near and dear to her heart. The bonds made between these teachers are so important not just for having that social-emotional connection, but also for being able to share and help with English lessons and assignments.
“We have open communication with one another and it’s definitely easier to bounce ideas off of any of the English teachers because we trust and care for each other,” Easton said.
Jamie D’Andrea is an English teacher at ACHS who wasted no time making friends with her coworkers; whether it was 20 years ago or 20 minutes ago, she has made some lifelong amity at ACHS.
“I think that we’ve all bonded on a personal level. I mean, people are very invested in each other’s home lives and personal lives,” D’Andrea said. “And I think people in the English department genuinely care about each other.”
Having a department so involved with each other’s lives creates an environment at work to successfully collaborate and make deeper connections in the classroom.. In these genuine work-friend relationships, there will be some people that an individual can gravitate more too.
“You know, Mrs. Easton is one of my best friends, one of the best people I know, one of my favorite people,” D’Andrea said. “She is someone that I get lucky enough to get to work with and see on a daily basis here, and then we hang out outside of school.”
The English department at ACHS is clearly a group of tight-knit friends who care about each other on a deeper level than literature. Their harmonious bonds go beyond school, yet the collaboration from teaching different sections of English creates an amazing balance not only for the teachers but also for the students. ACHS provides spaces and collaboration to allow those friendships to form. Students seeing those connections from teachers could even show students to put themselves out there and create lifelong bonds you will cherish for years to come. These teachers have created such a deep and meaningful bond over the years of working together and all because they met at ACHS.
