NAHANT — Jude Shanahan always knew she wanted to be a teacher.
“From the time I was a little kid, when everybody was out playing sports, I used to play school,” Shanahan said. “I’ve always been drawn to kids, and I’ve always been comfortable teaching kids.
“I couldn’t tell you exactly why, but kids have been a part of my life since the very beginning. I didn’t have a large family. I only have one brother, but I always enjoyed being with kids and the satisfaction of just seeing the lightbulb go off — the ‘aha’ moment,” she said.
But the road to Shanahan’s dream job wasn’t an easy one.
The lifelong Nahant resident said she set her sights on a job at Johnson Elementary School early on, applying to the district as soon as she graduated with her undergraduate degree in education from North Adams State College (now the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts) in the mid-1970s.
At the time, however, the district was only hiring teachers from outside Nahant in an effort to broaden its spectrum of staff, so Shanahan applied to work at the Lynn Public Schools, which she soon found out was only hiring staff who lived in Lynn.
Fifty-four unsuccessful job applications later, Shanahan eventually made the decision to switch careers entirely.
“I worked for a small airline for a couple of years, but the whole time I was working, I just wanted to get back to teaching,” she said. “So I ended up as a teaching aide in Beverly in the late ’70s and taught there for four years until Proposition 2½ came in and I got laid off.”
From there, Shanahan spent eight years working as a classroom supervisor at CETA — a federally-funded adult education program designed to provide job training for underserved populations — before ultimately deciding to return to school for her Master’s degree in the late 1990s. After graduation, she finally landed her first elementary teaching gig in the Lynnfield Public Schools.
A round of budget cuts hit the district just a few years later, and once again, Shanahan found herself out of a job.
“Story of my life,” Shanahan said with a laugh. “It was an ongoing joke for everybody. I used to have people make fun of me and say ‘whatever you do, don’t go where Jude is, because she’s got this dark cloud hanging over wherever she goes.’”
After suffering what she says was the 13th layoff of her career, Shanahan decided to make her way back to the district where she grew up. She took on a volunteer position at Johnson Elementary School in order to get her foot in the door while she served out the rest of her term on the Nahant School Committee.
As soon as her term on the school board ended in 2000, she applied and was told soon after that she had the position.
“And I’ve been here ever since,” she said. “It’s been my dream job. In Nahant, I’ve done special ed., second grade, fourth grade, and fifth grade, all in 20 years.”
As someone who has seen the star teacher in action, Johnson Elementary School Principal Kevin Andrews praised Shanahan as an “extremely thoughtful and caring educator,” whose dedication to her work benefited countless students during her two decades with the Nahant school system.
“She understands the importance of connection and has fostered individual and community connections through her volunteerism with the PTO, as a member of the JES faculty, and as an elected member of the School Committee,” Andrews said. “She has also modeled what it means to be a lifelong learner, as she embraced new technologies in her most recent years, moving from a physical classroom to a virtual one online as our remote learning coordinator during the pandemic.”
Although Shanahan is sad to say goodbye this Friday to the district she calls home, she’s also looking forward to a long and happy retirement, the first few months of which she plans to spend with friends in warm and sunny Florida.
As for the long and winding road it took to get to where she is today, Shanahan said she wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.
“I learned something from every place I went. Even though it may not have been where I wanted to be, it all worked out for the best,” she said. “Because Nahant is so much a part of me and the people are so much a part of me, it was even more special to be able to give back to the community I live in and that I love the most.”
Elyse Carmosino can be reached at [email protected].
