¨In general, I liked school very much. I liked my English classes and math classes the most. I feel like I had really good teachers in both these subjects at WVHS,¨ says Wayne Valley Alumni and English teacher, Frances Federici.
Federici has been an English teacher for 33 years. She is currently teaching in the largest middle school in Tennessee. There are 1,800 students and the school is from sixth to eighth grade. Mostly, she loves the students: ¨what keeps me coming back every year are my students. I teach seventh grade, and I love this age group.¨
Federici was encouraged to become a teacher through the teachers she had in her time at Valley. She explains, “Mr. Harold Bontekoe was my sophomore English teacher and also the advisor for the yearbook. He told me, repeatedly, that I should be an English teacher. He introduced me to Walt Whitman and the poetry of rock and roll. I can still hear and see his enthusiasm when he was reveling in the lyrics of Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen! But I was 15 and wanted to do anything but teach school!” This specific teacher had a big impact on the way Federici teaches and was partly the reason she is teaching.
Federici did not always want to become a teacher. When Federici graduated from college, Federici worked in Washington, D.C. for the House Budget Committee in the U.S. Congress. “At the same time, I wanted to be a journalist,” she states. While she was in politics, she spent a lot of time in a “hurry up and wait” cycle. Eventually, Federici felt her job becoming disheartening: ¨we spent a lot of time and energy worrying about politics and legislation that never was even in the public consciousness. It was very frustrating.”
Later, Federici became a substitute teacher and loved it. Following in the footsteps of her mother, who taught at Paterson Kennedy in New Jersey, she found joy in the classroom. Federici´s mother said that if she liked subbing, then Frederici would love being a teacher “so, [she] went back to school and got [her] teaching license and got [her] first teaching job in 1992 at Giles County High School in Pearisburg, Virginia.”
Then, Federici and her husband moved to Erie, Pennsylvania for 24 years before they both found jobs in Nashville, Tennessee. They have been living in Nashville, Tennessee since 2017.
Federici was involved with her high school field hockey team for four years and was also in the white team of SAAs (now known as SDA). Federici worked on the yearbook for her last three years of high school by being an assistant Sports Editor and the Student’s Life editor. “I felt very connected to the school and truly enjoyed being a part of the school culture.”
Federici is still close with her high school friends including her co-captain on the hockey team from senior year. Federici just recently attended the 40th WVHS reunion and had so much fun spending an evening with all her friends together. “We have a group chat that is sometimes the high of my day; we still think the same things are funny!”
Federici now enjoys her job a lot. But mostly, the students that come along with it. “I enjoy spending time with them, watching them learn new concepts and seeing them develop their personalities.”
