Long Time Nicolet Teacher Will be Missed, but Her Love for Learning Will Linger

Jane Joyce is not only passionate about what she teaches, but her students' drive to learn. After 38 years as a social studies teacher at , she has decided it’s time to retire.

Since she started teaching at Nicolet in January 1973, Joyce has been an advocate of learning and cultural immersion. Since 1979, she has worked in the Learning Center, spending time with students to help them learn in a way that makes sense to them. Thanks in large part to Joyce’s dedication to academic support, Nicolet High School opened a new, roomier Academic Success Center in September. The ASC gives students special tutoring to help them get through their classes.

“The setup here allows me to work one-on-one,” she said. “You don’t get that in the classroom - this is more personal.”

“Since I started at Nicolet 31 years ago, she has always been someone I look up to, respect and admire," said Spanish teacher Diane Tess. "Once when the school newspaper interviewed me, they asked me who my heroes were, and I named Jane Joyce as one of them.”

Joyce’s teaching style is suited to two settings: the classroom, and the one-on-one environment of the ASC. In the classroom, her philosophy is to be the "guide on the side."

“It’s not my role to open up a head and pour some stuff in it. I see my job as to help them put things together for themselves,” she said.

“I’m not passionate about content,” Joyce said. “I’m more passionate about learning – to expand your breadth and depth, exposing students to things they haven’t experienced. I’m more passionate about learning than what you’re learning.”

In the ASC, she can be more aware of individual students’ needs and learning styles. “It’s important to connect with students and play an academic role,” she said. “There are lots of things that affect students – there are different family and community situations. It’s important for them to know that I care.”

“Her dedication to teaching at-risk students to succeed in high school and beyond is awe-inspiring.  She is responsible for keeping students from falling between the cracks or further behind,” said Pat Paulson who worked in the ASC with Joyce for more than 20 years. “Jane developed the Learning Center to fill a need she saw at Nicolet and up until recent years, she was the at-risk coordinator.  Her program has been viewed and visited, raved about, and then used as a model in other schools.”

But more personal, and unique, is Joyce's love for all things Irish. “Of course, there is her husband, Dennis Joyce," Paulson said. "There's Irish crystal.  There's an Irish Christmas tree.  There's Irish dancing.  Jane spent years chauffeuring (daughter) Meghan to dance lessons and competitions.  She overcame her lack of hair styling skills to create those beautiful curls the dancers had to wear.  All of us have been treated to soda bread, and I'm sure there's Guinness in her fridge.”

Joyce said the most rewarding aspect of teaching is seeing a student succeed, but Paulson explained that all too often, students don’t recognize the work Joyce puts in until much later in life.

“Last spring, our last year in the old Learning Center, a senior who had knocked heads with Jane over his lack of effort in school many times thanked her with a big hug," Paulson said. "She has made a huge difference in the lives of Nicolet students but the thank you's do not happen often.  Most kids do not realize the help Jane has given them until they are a few years removed from high school.”

Joyce wants students to stick to subjects that give them trouble. “They can accomplish more than they believe. Effort and sticking to things can make a difference. Be open to change. If something’s not working for you, you’ll have to change. It takes courage,” she said.

In 2000, Joyce received the Kohl Fellowship Award, which recognizes 100 outstanding educators, and awards each school $1,000 – recipients propose how the award should be spent. Joyce proposed the Back On Track program, which annually awards 12 students who have made significant improvement in academic performance since the previous year.

Mario Fiorentino worked with Joyce for more than a decade in Nicolet’s alternative education program.  “At our meetings, she would say, ‘This is how it is,' and you’d do it because of the great deal of respect you had for her. If she said it, then you knew it was the absolute right thing to do in the best interest of the school and kids,” Fiorentino said.

Rather than leave Nicolet with parting words, Joyce hopes students and colleagues will simply remember her actions – and they certainly will. As Fiorentino said, “Nicolet is losing a truly brilliant person who will be impossible to replace.”