Tara O’hare is an eighth-grade English teacher at Fegeley Middle School (FMS). Originally, O’Hare had intended to go into cosmetology, but when O’Hare got the opportunity to volunteer and assist children with special needs, her heart and mind realized she was meant to work with children.
O’Hare spent her childhood in a suburb of Grand Rapids, Mich. O’Hare attended Heritage Christian School (HCS) from kindergarten to ninth grade. After graduating from HCS, O’Hare attended high school at Covenant Christian High School (CCHS) and graduated in 1998. During O’Hare’s high school education, she became involved with journalism and eventually became a yearbook editor during her senior year.
After O’Hare’s high school graduation, she began her college education at Cornerstone University (CU) in Grand Rapids, Mich. O’Hare graduated from CU in 2004 with a bachelor of secondary education degree with a focus on communication arts.
O’Hare picked a focus on communication arts due to her love of journalism, plus the degree was versatile. With the communication arts degree, O’Hare was able to teach journalism, speech, communications, English, creative writing, and literature to students.
A few months after graduating college, O’Hare traveled to Romania for three weeks to help underprivileged children. While volunteering, O’Hare met a former co-worker that was currently teaching. O’Hare’s old co-worker told her that there was an opening for a teaching position that taught both journalism and English to eighth-graders. O’Hare was ecstatic when she found out the great news and was ready to start her first teaching job at Rickover Junior High School (RJHS) in Illinois.
“That’s how I fell in love with eighth-grade; they still want to learn and their life is just beginning,” O’Hare said.
After a decade of teaching at RJHS, O’Hare decided to move to Portage, Ind., and begin the next phase of her career as a middle school English teacher at Fegeley Middle School (FMS). Since that move, O’Hare has been an avid member, friend, and teacher at FMS for seven years.
In O’Hare’s opinion, teaching eighth grade has been a fun experience from the beginning.
“I love how unpredictable it is every day. I love how every day I walk into school it’s a new day,” she said.
For O’Hare, middle school is a lot different than it used to be. She believes that there is such a difference due to the evolution of technology and her growing up in a small town.
“I was in middle school 20 years ago. It’s crazy to imagine me having an iPad in middle school. I just got excited when I got new pencils. I also grew up in a smaller town than Portage. There were never a lot of new people. No one ever left my town.” O’Hare said.
In O'Hare's 17 years of teaching, she’s encountered many former students and seen their success years later. O’Hare believes that there’s one piece of advice every eighth-grader should know.
“Never take for granted your skills or what you have. I’ve worked and watched my students take for granted what they’ve had and ended up in some tight spots, while I have also seen former students of mine perform on Broadway, open up their own businesses, and overall become successful people. Never take for granted anything.” O’Hare stated.