MMSD Today

News and information for staff members and the Madison community

Vol. III No. 4 - April 3, 2008

Family and Career, the best of both worlds

by Joan Unmacht, Hamilton Middle School

Ten years ago my sister and I were both employed as full-time teachers in the Madison Metropolitan School District; I was teaching mathematics at Hamilton Middle School and Janet Pliner, my identical twin, was teaching second and third grade at Shorewood Elementary.

We each just had our second child. It was a very happy time in our lives; that is, until our parents shared some news with us. Our father was diagnosed with cancer and shortly thereafter passed away. Our mother was also in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease.

The struggle to maintain a quality balance between our jobs and family forced us to reevaluate some of our priorities. Our parents always put our family of eleven first, and we wanted to follow that example. A job-share seemed like the perfect solution.

We approached my principal at the time, Bob Pellegrino, who agreed to let us try out our idea for a year. I would teach Mondays and Tuesdays, Janet Thursdays and Fridays, and we would alternate Wednesdays. We were really excited about the opportunity to teach at the same school for the first time.

Almost a decade later, we still enjoy sharing our mathematics position at Hamilton. Daily communication and similar teaching styles help to create a learning environment where our students tend to think of us as one person.

Many students say they can tell us apart when they see us together, but find calling us by our correct name difficult when we're not both at school. Some students avoid the guessing game altogether by hyphenating our name, calling us Unmacht-Pliner.

We believe that our students benefit from the situation as much as we do. We plan our units together and regularly exchange ideas and teaching techniques. Teaching part-time enables us to come back to school each week refreshed. We enjoy sharing our successes with each other and are able to put our heads together and problem solve with one another when we have concerns.

Job-sharing continues to allow us to spend more time with our own families as well as with our mother, currently at HospiceCare, without sacrificing anything professionally.

We are grateful for our unique arrangement and truly feel we have the best of both worlds.

Joan Unmacht (left) and Janet Pliner, job-share teachers and identical twins

Family and Career, the best of both worlds

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