The Journey To CHAH: Ms. Mayberry Arrives

Jenni Mayberry is a teacher here at CHAH. Her main focuses are ELA, literacy and writing skills. Besides teaching English classes, Ms Mayberry also works with students in smaller groups and has the role of department chair, also called TTL (Transition Team Leader), which means that she works behind the scenes at CHAH.

She has been teaching in our school for many years and started her journey by originally getting her bachelors degree in visual communications. During this time she was interested in graphic design and visual communications. She felt as if it was the only thing for her based on her current skills. 

We asked Mayberry what she had to do to receive her current position and her journey which led up to her being at CHAH. We talked about how some teachers continue to expand their skill set after a couple years of teaching and go into different fields but Mayberry feels as if she is the opposite.

She said that she has “worked in other sectors, and other industries and moved into teaching,” which is what she did before ending up at our school. Before reaching CHAH, Mayberry had multiple experiences. She says that because she “grew up teaching gymnastics,” she knew she liked working with kids. 

In her earlier years after high school, Mayberry “thought [she] was going into the non profit [sector].” She worked with education based organizations, working the graphic design aspect of it. She later realized it wasn’t for her.

After her experience working with a non profit, she ended up taking a year off and moving to Uganda. Then, she came back to finish her undergrad degree. Afterwards, she said that she had “worked for C2 Education for a bit.” C2 Education is similar to tutoring centers all over the city helping with the verbal side of SAT prep. 

Later on, she worked for Apple. During that time she found a job that she truly loved.  “One of my main responsibilities that I really loved was talent development. It was like training internally. And I liked that a lot,” Mayberry said. Finding that out helped her get a step closer to where she is now as a teacher. Her job at Apple made her realize that she wanted to bring her skills to a classroom. “And so I was like, okay, how do I get back into the classroom and do this in a field that I actually believe in?” Mayberry said. 

She mentions that after her job with Apple she “moved to New York to do the Fellows program here to get a master’s in education.” She even says “I actually was still in that program my first year of teaching.”

As a teacher, Ms.Mayberry would say that her favorite thing about CHAH is that she gets “so attached to how real and funny and charismatic the students are, how different each one of you is, and how much I learn every day.” She talks about CHAH as a place that never gets boring, somewhere she always has something to do even though she’s been teaching for a long time. 

Something Mayberry would say is that she would love for all students “to feel like they belong in this community. And that they’re getting something out of it.” That’s the type of teacher Mayberry is. She genuinely cares about the well being of all the students here at CHAH. 

Throughout the years Mayberry has changed in various ways. “I feel more confident about what I believe in. What I believe the purpose and benefits of education are,” she said. 

Just like the teachers have changed, the students have as well. Over time students have been less motivated because they are getting used to coming back to this learning environment, which is something that a lot of teachers want to help out with.

“None of us should ever feel like we need to make ourselves smaller or mask certain parts of who we are, to either fit in or make people feel better in some way. And that this should be the place for you to feel safest to do that,” Mayberry said.