Bar Harbor Woman One of the First Recognized at UMaine Teaching Program
Lanie Christianson's Love for Kids Leads Her To Teaching Career
BAR HARBOR—Not everybody makes an afghan in high school that’s based on all the genre of books they’ve read in one year. Not everybody marries their childhood sweethearts and not everybody loves kids and learning so much that they want to spend all day, every day, teaching them. But Lanie Christianson isn’t everybody.
She never has been.
An effusive person with a love for kids, Lanie’s taking a big step forward in her quest to become a teacher.
And on Friday, January 26, this island woman was one of 55 students that the UMaine College of Education and Human Development asked to take part in its first ever Pinning and Recognition Ceremony on Friday, Jan. 26.
Ask her what she loves about kids, and Lanie will tell you that she loves everything about them.
“I love watching them grow, learn and it fills my heart every day that I get to support them in that. Even on those days when they’re clearly practicing expressing their emotions, I find myself looking back on the day excited to do it again the next,” she said.
Now, she’s one step closer to being a part of that growth.
THE CEREMONY AND NEED FOR TEACHERS
According to the University of Maine,
“The ceremony is meant to recognize and celebrate the college’s new teacher candidates, students who have reached the point in their academic career when they are able to start taking upper-level courses and have shown a commitment to becoming a teacher. It also comes at a time when schools in Maine and across the country are struggling with staffing levels.”
An August 2023 story in the Portland Press Herald by Lana Cohen explains,
“Low pay, what some see as a lack of respect for the field, and challenging work all are blamed for the overall shortage of educators, especially those serving special-needs students. Historically, the shortages largely affected urban and rural districts with higher levels of poverty while sparing wealthier and suburban districts. That changed over the past few years. As the COVID-19 pandemic, the politicization of education, and consumer price inflation made the field more challenging to work in – and less affordable or attractive to join – vacancies grew, and the impact spread.”
When the 2023 school year started, the Conners Emerson School only has listed openings for substitute teachers. Trenton didn’t list any openings. Mount Desert Island High School only had listed opening for after school support for student athletes and coaching opportunities.
Still, throughout Maine and the country, schools are short-handed and there is a continued educator shortage. This is often linked, as it is in a recent Rand study, to COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on education as well as salary levels, long hours, and stress.
According to that August 28 article by Lana Cohen for the Portland Press Herald,
“The minimum salary for teachers in Maine is $40,000, lower than teacher salaries in any other New England state and in the bottom half of starting salaries nationally. Maine’s livable wage – the amount of money one must make to cover basic needs – for a single person is $34,382, according to data from World Population Review.”
The typical starting salary for a teacher starting their career with a bachelor’s degree is between $40,000 and $50,500. According to the National Education Association, the Maine wide average for all teachers is $58,757.
According to an article in the Washington Post, by Moriah Balingit,
“Tuan Nguyen, a Kansas State University education professor, last year set out with two colleagues to collect statewide data on teacher shortages. They counted more than 36,500 vacancies in 37 states and Washington, D.C., for the 2021-2022 school year. Wednesday, they published updated data and found that teacher shortages had grown 35 percent among that group, to more than 49,000 vacancies.”
LANIE’S CEREMONY
Lanie excited about the ceremony, she said on Friday morning. “It’s the first awards type thing that I’ve been a part of in my time in college. To be honest, I didn’t even realize that this was a first time they’ve done the pinning ceremony, but I think it’s exciting and makes the teacher candidacy feel even more important and exciting.”
It is exciting and it’s important.
Accredited by the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), and the Maine Department of Education, the College of Education and Human Development’s teacher preparation programs’ graduating students can teach in Maine and many other states.
For Lanie to become a candidate, she had to create a portfolio with her academic transcript, maintaining grades of a B or higher in core lower-level courses. She also had to submit a field experience report. That report discusses her 30 hours observing a K-12 classroom or similar educational experience.
THE ISLAND CONNECTION
Islanders may remember Lanie working at the Criterion Theatre.
“I still miss it! I was so lucky that I got to bring my little sister (Penelope) with me to work and everyone I worked with was always so supportive, especially Production Manager Chuck Colbert,” she said.
“She brought so much love and joy and spirit to everything she did at the theater. Just seeing and being with her, in our endeavors to entertain the masses, lifted the whole experience for everyone. Such a ray of light and warmth… We miss her. I have always hoped all the best for her and know that her hard work, ethics, and determination will bring great things to her,” Colbert said.
Lanie’s dad, Brian Shepard, always lived on MDI while Lanie grew up, which is why she went to school here.
“I lived with him half the time while my mom, Sara Hathaway (formerly Jones) lived in Old Town. In seventh grade I switched schools to Tremont Consolidated and then went to MDI High School after that. When I graduated, I moved back to Old Town to go to UMaine,” Lanie said.
TEACHING FOR THE FUTURE
Now a junior elementary education major at the University of Maine, Lanie said, “I always loved school and I’m a kid-person. I love working with kids.”
Teaching, though, wasn’t a straight path for Lanie. When she started UMaine in 2017, she double majored in English and math. Two years later that didn’t feel right and she transferred to Eastern Maine Community College. She earned an associate’s in liberal studies.
She started working as a preschool teacher at a daycare.
She loved it.
“That’s when it hit me: Maybe I should go back to school to be a teacher,” she said. “I worked as the preschool room lead at a daycare called Brewer Children’s Learning Center and then worked as a float at a daycare called the Sharing Place in Orono until school started this year. Now I sub there occasionally and mostly babysit while I’m doing school.”
“When I was younger I always thought I’d be a teacher but the idea overwhelmed me by the time I graduated high school. My mom was and still is a teacher, seeing her love and excel at being a teacher the past few years is really what inspired me to make that final leap into becoming a teacher,” Lanie said.
She’s also editing a book she wrote in 2022. It’s been a busy time for Lanie who married her high school sweetheart
“As of Nov. 2023, we have been together for ten years! Truly high school sweethearts,” she said.
High school was a pretty formative place for Lanie.
“Heather Dillon, Kate Meyer, Matthew Lawson, Brooke Gariepy, Davonne Pappas, and Mark Carignan were some of my biggest supporters and role models. I would not be here today without them,” she said of her teachers and staff.
Heather Chute Dillon remembers Lanie fondly, too. “What an avid reader she is. She even made an afghan based on the genres of books she read one year. I was also impressed with her drive to focus on reading and writing. She participated in the NaNoWriMo starting in high school. Her love of literacy will be a gift to her future students.”
NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and the goal is for participants to write 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November.
Lanie’s not 100 percent sure where she’ll teach once she graduates.
“Right now I’m trying to focus on finishing school and continuing to build connections, and grow as a person. We might stay in Old Town but we’re at a point in our lives where once I graduate we could go anywhere! So we’ll see.”
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/08/24/teacher-shortages-pipeline-college-licenses/
Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation
Cohen’s August 28 article in the Press Herald
ThankYou Carrie. What a wonderful Bar Harbor story!
ThankYou Lanie. We all need teachers like you. And ThankYou for passing on all the good lessons from your teachers, family, and friends.
It has always taken dedication and fortitude to be a teacher. These days, it also takes courage. Individual courage. And community courage. To defend and uphold the tradition of American public education - which at its inception and heart, like our Constitution, is essentially progressive.