By Bradley Askew ’22
Ms. Jenny Lynch, a teacher that started her teaching career in early 2003, at a Catholic single-gender institution. Ms. Lynch was a very young 22 years old when she started at the newly opened Girl’s division at Regis Jesuit. Not only was it a hectic year seeing that it was the first year the boys and girls were on the same campus and that a lot of new teachers were coming in, one of them was Ms. Lynch. Seeing how everyone was trying to get settled in everyone was on their own, no help, you had to find your way on your own. That was a challenge for Ms. Lynch, even so, she almost quit teaching by October of 2003, “that was a challenge learning how to do everything on my own.”
“My favorite thing about dancing and teaching dance is that it’s really one of my passions it fuels my soul it allows me to express myself and share that with my students and it’s just fun,” Lynch says.
When Ms. Lynch was in college herself, she wasn’t originally going to pursue an education in English and teaching but it was theater. It was the competitiveness of theatre that made Ms. Lynch realize that she is not a very competitive person and thinking back to high school, she had amazing English teachers and other family members that had a career in teaching that made her think twice about education in English and teaching herself.
“My favorite thing about teaching is again the uncertainty of my day and getting to be with young men and women all day I think is the best gift and then watching you guys grow up and see what you choose to do with your life’s is really just intriguing and it’s my own little fun experiment to see how we change and how we grow,” Lynch said.
Ms. Lynch not only teaches dance in the Girls Division she teaches English for the boys in the PAC. When jumping between buildings Ms. Lynch has no problems teaching in both, as seen when she always has a smile on her face while walking to a different building for a different class, but there is one challenge, no one ever knows where she is. That can be a problem when she needs to be found, you never know which office, which building, anywhere on campus.
“I knew I didn’t want to leave Colorado, I love Colorado. I think it’s the best state in the world I should say in the nation,” she said. “I knew I liked English and CU was too big for me and CSU I didn’t really feel super at home I had a cousin already at UNC that we talked about becoming roommates and it just kinda literally fell into place,” lynch says. “They had a great teaching and theatre program actually because that was what I was looking at actually their theatre program and there teaching program ended up being one of the best in the state too at the time.”
Not only is Ms. Lynch a fun giggly person in the classroom, but she is also one outside. Ms. Lynch always loves to crack a laugh, in fact, it’s her one of her favorite memories from childhood and present day with her husband and kids.
“I would tell my 9th-grade self to breathe. This too shall pass. It gets better. I would say that because my 9th grade year of high school was not the best, I was bullied quite a lot into my sophomore year, it really took me down quite a bit so I think I didn’t really enjoy high school to the level that I should have.”