Everyone knows what teachers and staff do during the school day, but not about what happens after school. Madison has many teachers who have other jobs outside of Madison. Many of these jobs need similar skill sets and teachers are able to use the skills they use in the classroom to allow them to be better at their job outside of the class. These jobs include everything from Jiu Jitsu to bartending and coaching.
Carter Brownrigg, a math professor at Madison, teaches Jiu Jitsu after school twice a week. Jiu Jitsu is a modern type of martial art that is based on using leverage, angles, pressure and timing. Since Brownrigg only teaches Jiu Jitsu twice a week, it allows him to have a good work-life balance. He describes it as more of a hobby than a job because he enjoys it so much. While being very different, the skills developed in his classroom are helpful for teaching jiu jitsu.“They are super similar in that I am teaching very complicated material to students, and then making them practice it. Both math and Jiu Jitsu require a lot of mental focus and specific skills,” says Brownrigg.
While Brownrigg teaches Jiu Jitsu, Jean Counts is coaching Lacrosse both for and outside of Madison. Counts is a multiple disabilities teacher, she is very busy between coaching and teaching but she has the right motivation and organization so she is able to do both jobs to the best of her abilities. Counts enjoys both teaching and coaching but has found that kids at sports practice tend to be more motivated than kids at school.
“Working with kids and teaching them skills. Keeping them on task, motivated, interested in improving their abilities,” says Counts when asked about the similarities between coaching and teaching.
Seeing peoples improvements can also be done through a career in life coaching like Elise Fasik. Working with people and watching them grow is what Fasik enjoys doing. Fasik is part of Madison Admin and is a health and wellness coach. She started during Covid when she had more free time, she got her certification in life coaching and opened a business, Outrun Gravity. Coaching and helping students have many similarities in skills that Fasik is able to use.
“It’s watching people grow and some of the coaching skills I also apply here. It’s kind of an easy segue because we kind of coach kids through decision making habits and behavior management, they build on top of each other,” says Fasik.
Some teachers have jobs in coaching but others have jobs such as bartending like Chris Kublank. Kublank, who is a physical education teacher, is currently working at Settle Down Easy Brewery Company, but he also works many other jobs over the summer so he can help get his kids through college. He typically works once a week after school and sometimes on Sundays. While working at Settle Down Easy Brewery Company, Kublank often runs into students who he is teaching currently, but sometimes he’ll see people he used to teach or coach with their own families!
“Just last week a couple came in that I taught at Oakton HS when I first started teaching. They were married and had two kids with them,” recalls Kublank.
While bartending allows Kublank to meet new people, Benjamin Eckman meets new people through being a sports announcer. Working at a school can bring you new opportunities such as being a sports announcer. Eckman, a new English teacher at Madison, who used to teach at Thomas Edison High School. While working at Edison they offered him the position as public address announcer which basically means he’s the sports announcer for the boys and sometimes girls basketball team at edison. Even though he left Edison he is still doing it and loving every second of it. The only way he’s able to teach and announce is because of his wife.
“My wife, Meredith, is 100% why I am able to do any of these opportunities,” states Eckman.
Without his wife, he wouldn’t be able to grade everyone’s papers and still make it to all of the basketball games. He enjoys getting to know kids, being an announcer and a teacher. At Edison he is notorious for properly pronouncing everyone’s names, even if they aren’t on Edison’s team.
“I don’t care if you’re part of the basketball starting five, or a freshman coming off the bench in the fourth quarter. For some of these kids this is the only time in their lives they will ever hear their names,” says Eckman.