WHITEHALL — Jen Dennis is known to be loved by her students in Whitehall High School. A 2001 graduate of Whitehall, she credits her own teachers growing up with their influence on the career she pursued and has now.
“The education that I had as a kid, I always knew I wanted to be a teacher when I was little,” Dennis said. “But when I got to high school here at Whitehall, I had phenomenal social studies teachers and they were instrumental in me falling in love with the content, and falling in love with learning about the story of history and retelling it to your students. My history and psychology teachers were influential in making me fall in love with the subjects. I wanted to do that for other students.”
After receiving her education degree from Grand Valley State University, Dennis hoped to return and teach in the community she is proud to call home.
“I hoped that someday I would return to Whitehall to teach,” said Dennis. “I live in Whitehall. My family is here. I worked at Muskegon for 13 years and assistant coached tennis. Six years ago, a job opened up at Whitehall, so I applied and was hired. I love being here. When I came back to Whitehall, it felt like I was coming home. I feel at home now with my career. I can give back to my district.”
Dennis shared other than her own fascination with her teaching subjects, her favorite part of teaching is watching students truly learn the content.
“The relationship with the kids and getting to know my students,” Dennis said. “watching their faces light up when they learn the content and when they make connections with the curriculum. Seeing the light bulbs come on in their heads and the connections being made.”
Dennis chose to teach ninth grade world history and AP psychology because of the influence her own teachers had on her at Whitehall.
“I’m not a fan of math and science,” said Dennis. “I didn’t really want to do English. History is a story and putting the pieces together in this continuing story that we live. There are so many human connections with it. I like learning about it and teaching it to my students. If we don’t know history, we’re doomed to repeat it. I think it’s so important that we need to make sure kids know about it. It was always so fascinating to me. I love psychology because it’s all around us.
“When I teach my students psychology, they start noticing things. It’s so applicable to our lives. I love watching the kids make those connections.”
Other than making special connections with her students, Dennis is known by staff and administration to be very organized.
“I’m very organized, maybe a little excessively,” Dennis said. “I think it’s so important, so many students and people today are not organized. Things can be so much easier, especially for ninth graders coming into high school. It’s a huge transition year. They’re not used to the rigor of high school yet and it’s a big change from middle school. I try to teach my freshmen to be organized. We have planners and agendas. We fill them out every week. We plan our week out and I tell them in advance, ‘This is what we’re going to do and we have a quiz in two weeks.’ Some of them have jobs or play sports, and I want to teach them how to budget their time.”
Dennis is proud to be a Viking alum and to be a part of Whitehall’s teaching staff.
“I love what I do and I’m thankful for having the opportunity to come back and work in the district that I’m continuing to impact,” said Dennis. “Whitehall is such a special community and I love that I’m a part of it. I was a student, I’m a product of the community and I love that I’m able to be a part of influencing more students in the Whitehall community. It’s full circle. My own children live and go to school here, I live here. It’s really special to be able to have this community.”
