Chyanna Millett-Cordwell works with her students, Shye Buck (left) and Emily Cummings (far right), at the Harvest Festival.  Submitted

BETHEL — Chyanna Millett-Cordwell’s first time teaching job kicked off during the pandemic, and as the Jobs for Maine Graduates teacher at Telstar Regional High School, she found the challenges to be the reason to keep coming back.

JMG is a national nonprofit organization that works with students in all 16 Maine counties on career exploration. Millett-Cordwell helps students envision what their futures could look like, building on that promise; then works on skills and provides guidance for students to reach their goals. Her class isn’t traditional, but is a post-secondary employability financial literacy class. There are 29 students in Millett-Cordwell’s class, five of whom graduated in June and are still working with her.

“I had one senior who basically was like, I’ll see you in the fall. I was like, no, you’re not gonna see me in the fall — I knew he wanted to work full-time. I was like, let’s get you working full-time by graduation. I ended up having to sit in the library with him for five hours, when all the schools are closed. We completed homework at the end of that graduation,” she said.

Millett-Cordwell worked with that student for five consecutive hours. At the time, the student had stopped talking to all his teachers, and Millett-Cordwell was the only one he’d respond too. He did graduate and did reach out to her after graduation.

“I really, really pride ourselves on our relationships,” explains Millett-Cordwell. “We treat the kids like kids and treat them like humans. I think that’s huge. And it’s a little lacking right now … I’m not trying to reach a state standard. I can stop everything in the middle of class and be like, do we need to have [an] academic remediation or just chat? I have flexibility. And the kids will come to me for anything.”

Millett-Cordwell had another student who she said was “closed off,” and had earned just five credits his freshman year. Millett-Cordwell didn’t give up on him. They did the homework together, and for the first time since fifth grade, the student passed every class. This year, the student has stayed after school every week, and is currently passing all but one class.

“I try really hard to go the extra mile because the kids that get swept under the rug you assume they’re not doing the work because they just don’t want too. Some of the kids just can’t. And they need that help along. I mean, think about it being sixteen, having eight classes that you have to take and keeping track of everything that you have to do after COVID.”

The pandemic has had an impact on students, on everyone. It has affected students’ social skills. In the past Millett-Cordwell recognized some students didn’t know how to ask for help, and now they’re warming up to people, chatting and laughing.

“With him [the student] that specifically makes me want to always help the underdog. Yeah. Because you never know what they’re going through,” she said.

Because Millett-Cordwell came into teaching during a pandemic, along with her background, her teaching methods are more aligned with life-skills methods

“I tell every kid, and I’ll repeat it on Monday, when I get my eighth-graders, that it doesn’t matter what you call me or what you do to me on any given day: the next day is a new day,” she explains.

“So I’m not holding it against you. I think the kids take that for real. And every time they walk into my class, it’s a new class. They don’t have to hold on to something that happened yesterday. It’s not fair to just treat them badly, because they did something once. I mean, mistakes are made. They’re only human.”