Jessica Cohen is a lifelong Portage resident who loves her hometown and has found her dream career in her hometown.
"After college, there was nowhere else I wanted to be other than ‘home’. Portage has always been it for me," Cohen said.
Cohen also has many hobbies and loves to spend time with her family.
“For me, my hobbies include learning more about history. I am a history nerd and I like random weird facts about anything and everything. 'Jeopardy' is a favorite show of mine. I also like reading, spending time with my family, especially my nieces and nephews. I like having game nights with my friends and going to new places with my favorite person in the world, my sister Sarah," Cohen said.
Cohen said the brevity of life is shocking, so it is imperative to grab it by the horns.
“Life is hard, but it is short, shorter than we all realize. When you lose some of the most important people in your life at young ages, you learn that you cannot wait around for the “I’ll go on that trip next year” or the ‘I’ll do that later' mentality," Cohen said.
Cohen attended Portage schools until college where she was a part of a sorority until it had to close.
“I graduated from Portage High School in 2004 and I graduated from Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College in 2009 with a degree in Secondary Education Social Studies,” Cohen said. “I was a member of Theta Gamma Theta Sorority from 2006 to when the organization stopped due to a decline in membership.”
Right out of college, Cohen stayed local and taught in the area.
“When I first graduated, I taught Title I for another school in the area,” Cohen said.
Cohen was also a media clerk and comes from a family of three generations of media clerks as well.
“I was the media clerk at Fegely Middle School. I will always proudly say that I am a third-generation media clerk,” Cohen said. “My grandmother was the media clerk for many years at Willowcreek until her retirement in 1992, and my mom was the media clerk for Portage High School for 15 years before she passed away in 2016.”
Cohen started her current postition in 2013. She loves her job and being able to show her students the fun side of social studies.
“In 2013, I started my current job teaching eighth grade Social Studies at Fegely and I would not change one thing about it. I know that social studies can be tough for some people because they consider it boring,” Cohen said. “I find it the exact opposite and I try to convey to my students that history does not have to be boring. It can be exciting and adventurous, and it is so full of twists and turns, it is like being on a rollercoaster, but your feet are planted on the ground.”
Cohen said teaching is the thing in her life that motivates her to get up in the morning.
“Teaching is the only thing I have ever wanted to do. Growing up, some kids wanted to be doctors, lawyers, astronauts, or princesses. Nope, I wanted to be a teacher,” Cohen said
Cohen said that an impactful moment happened to her last year and it still makes its impression today.
“Last year, in 2021, during Teacher Appreciation Week, I received a note from a student that said even though the struggle they were going through at the time was working hard to keep them down, Miss Cohen works twice as hard,” Cohen said. “Teaching is not just about learning the material. It is about making connections with the students and when I received that note, something lit up inside of me letting me know that I made the right career choice.”
Cohen knows that she makes an impact in her students' lives and loves the opportunity to see them grow.
“I believe teaching is about making connections with my students first and when we have that, the learning flows much easier. My students and I start our classes with conversations about a random topic whether it is sports, music, animals, etcetera and it allows everyone to just be themselves and gives them a comfortable place to express themselves," Cohen said.