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rom an early age, Raini Jewell was destined to be a teacher. She explained her path into teaching, “I think I’ve always known teaching was what I wanted to do, although I tried to avoid it a few times in my life. My mom was an early childhood educator in NYC for 30 years. I spent so many days helping out in her classrooms as a young child and I always did my high school community service hours in the elementary classrooms at my school.” “During my college summer breaks, I ran recreational programs for under privileged children in the South Bronx. In my junior year of college, while other people were going abroad to study, I came back to NYC to take graduate level education classes and do student-teaching in a dual-language program in a New York City public school,” Raini said. She received a B.A. in Psychology from Brown University in Providence, R.I. and then earned a Masters in Early Childhood and Elementary Education from Bank Street College of Education in New York City. She continued, “Somehow, I was still planning on going to Law School after all of these experiences. Someone I admired greatly pushed me to teach for just one year after college, which I did and then I decided I wanted to stay in the field so I went to graduate school for education instead of law school. After 5 years of teaching, I took another break and entered the corporate world for a couple of years, but I missed being in a school, so I came running back after two years,” she said. “What I love about teaching is truly, everything! I guess if I had to pick one thing though, it’s being around young children and seeing how excited and happy they get whenever they have an “aha” moment or they realize they’ve learned or mastered something new,” Raini beamed. “There’s always real joy on their faces. It’s fun to be around such happy people all the time,” she said. “I was born and raised and lived for 40 years in Manhattan (New York City). I didn’t really imagine myself ever moving to the Tampa area until after I had my daughter and went through my first N.Y. winter with a baby. I decided I didn’t want to do winters with a young child anymore! My brother has been living in Tampa for 16 years so I figured I’d try it down here. I moved here in June of 2015 and was originally living in Riverview and working as the Lower School Division Director at an Independent School in South Tampa. I moved up to Wesley Chapel and started working at Academy at the Lakes in July of 2018 as lower Division Director of Curriculum and Instruction. In January 2019, I moved into a new position as Lower Division Director. I am a single mom to a 5 year old daughter who is in Kindergarten at AATL,” she noted. Raini mentioned that she keeps gratitude first and foremost in her life. “When people around me whine and complain, I say ‘First world problems, people!’ I try to keep things in perspective and acknowledge that we’re pretty lucky and well-off and our problems are generally quite small. There are lots of other people in the world who have real problems so let’s be grateful for what we have and how we live,” she pointed out. Another mantra that guides her is ‘Be Kind’. She emphasized, “I truly don’t understand people who are mean just to be mean. Life is way too short to move through it being ugly towards others. I’d much rather expend that kind of energy on something positive.” Her young students are very fortunate that her journey led her to the classroom. PHOTOGRAPHY JEANINE MCLEOD / CLOUD 9 STUDIOS VOLUME VI •BY ISSUE VIII
Wesley Chapel Magazine 9