Today, for the "Women's History Month" celebration, I would like to introduce this amazing woman
Meet Jennifer Rawlings, 48, wife, mother, Multilingual Learner (ML) teacher...
Jen Rawlings grew up in a very rural area outside of Farmington, ME. She spent the majority of her childhood outside with her brother, exploring the meadows and woods around her home. Since her childhood, Jen has always found solace in nature.
Jen’s mother was a nutritionist who went on to get her Masters in Public Health and run a few different non-profit organizations for abused women in the Farmington area. Her father managed Bass shoe stores before landing his dream job of teaching developmental writing at the University of Maine at Farmington. Jen’s parents were back-to-the-land hippie types so when Jen was in 1st grade they sent her and her brother to the Village School, a small, community-based, alternative school nearby. This was a formative experience in that Jen learned how to manage her own time and be accountable for the work she did. Her teacher became a valued mentor and family friend who inspired Jen to pursue a career in education.
Jen’s parents have also always been an inspiration. Her dad was one of the founding members and president of Veterans for Peace, an international organization representing veterans who work for a world without war. He is also a published poet. Both her parents were active in local and global social justice movements so witnessing people caring deeply for others and fighting for a better world was the backdrop of her childhood and gave her a deep and unwavering empathy for others.
After grades 1-5 at the Village School, Jen transitioned to public school in Farmington. She went to middle and high school at Mt. Blue where she ran cross country and track. After graduation, Jen went to Davidson College in North Carolina, which was her first real cultural immersion experience. She made lifelong friends from all over the country and grew to love the southern twang. During her college years, she was part of a service organization that gave her the opportunity to travel to Puerto Rico, where she first fell in love with the Spanish language as well as the beauty of cultural exchange.
After studying French in high school and college, Jen was determined to become fluent in Spanish so after graduation she worked as a temp for three months and saved all her pennies to pay her college loans while she studied Spanish in Costa Rica. This is where she met her husband who was also studying Spanish at a language school. They became fast friends and both ended up in Vermont when they returned. Jen went to graduate school at the School for International Training to become an ESL teacher and Dave was working for Eckerd Youth Alternatives. After doing her internship at Reiche School in Portland, ME, Jen and Dave decided to go west. Jen got a job teaching in a bilingual classroom in Santa Fe, NM while Dave pursued his own graduate degree in education.
Teaching in Santa Fe was amazing in so many ways - her students and their families were wonderful and she learned so much from them, there were many trips to Mexico, great friends and outdoor adventures - but it was also a struggle financially (NM was 48th in the nation for teacher pay) and Jen started to burn out as a classroom teacher due to long hours with no built-in planning time. Her health deteriorated and anxiety was high so she applied for and got a State Department fellowship teaching English at the University of Antsiranana in Madagascar.
Teaching in Madagascar was a bit of a struggle - there were frequent student strikes at the university so when Jen arrived in September, she had to wait until February to actually start teaching. However, this gave Dave and her time to explore the country while providing professional development to Peace Corps volunteers and state agencies. Unfortunately, it was also during this time that Dave became very sick. Adequate medical care was hard to come by so he headed home while Jen finished her fellowship. They planned on returning to Madagascar for a second year but Dave’s health wasn’t improving so they scrambled and found teaching jobs in Bethel, ME where they bought their first house. This was a rough period as the only house they could afford was uninhabitable and required a lot of sweat equity. Dave still had no answers about his health issues. Luckily, family and friends came for work parties and it all got done, just in time for their first child, Xochitl, to be born in 2006.
Luckily they were able to sell the house before the housing crash and moved to the Saco area for their current jobs. Through much research and many doctor’s visits, they learned to manage Dave’s health issues. She and Dave found their dream home, a passive solar house set on 3 acres in Limington and they had another daughter, Iona, in 2011. They’ve spent the past 15 years creating gardens, orchards and building a sauna as well as renovating the house. Being outside with plants is definitely one of Jen’s passions. She became an herbalist in 2018 in order to grow her own herbs and create gentle, health-promoting remedies for family and friends.
Along with the stress of the unknown, the pandemic also brought many outdoor adventures with the girls and this has become the Jen’s focus over the past few years. You can never have too much fun so any free time is spent camping, hiking, mountain biking, cross country skiing, swimming and “cold dipping” whenever she can. Oh and crosswording - it’s an addiction. Jen and Dave have recently begun to share their love of travel and adventure with their girls through a few trips out west to visit national parks, Québec and now a visit to Portugal.
Jen has been a Multilingual Learner (ML) teacher at CK Burns School for the past 15 years. This year has been one of the most exciting as Saco has welcomed its first group of asylum seekers and Jen has had the opportunity to work with and learn from these amazing students and their families. She continues to be so impressed with the other teachers on her ML team and in her school during this challenging year.
As a lifelong sufferer from anxiety, Jen is learning to ground herself in reality and focus on the good that is there. Jen’s advice for other women is to try to find the joy in what you do and how you live - the day to day activities that put a pep in your step. She no longer seeks happiness, just fun, which seems much more attainable.
Another one of Jen's favorite quotes:
“Wounding and healing are not opposites. They’re part of the same thing. It is our wounds that enable us to be compassionate with the wounds of others. It is our limitations that make us kind to the limitations of other people. . . . I think I have served people perfectly with parts of myself I used to be ashamed of.”
Rachel Naomi Remen
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Thank you, Jen, for sharing your story!
#womenshistorymonth #womansupportingwomen #womanpower #mainephotographer
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