First Lady Jill Biden has resumed teaching in person at Northern Virginia Community College, where she has instructed students since 2009. Biden returned to the classroom on Tuesday.
She is the first first lady to depart the White House, in Washington, DC, for a full-time job, according to NBC News.
‘There are some things you just can’t replace, and I can’t wait to get back in the classroom,’ Biden, 70, told Good Housekeeping magazine in a recent interview.
A first lady working outside of her official duties is a ‘big deal’, according Boston University communications professor Tammy Vigil, who penned a book about former first ladies Melania Trump and Michelle Obama.
Biden taught English and writing remotely for months before returning to the classroom.
The first lady has said that teaching ‘isn’t just what I do, it’s who I am’.
She taught at the community college throughout the eight years that her husband Joe Biden served as vice president.
Biden is not the first wife of a president with a teaching background.
Laura Bush, the wife of former President George W Bush, was an elementary school teacher and a librarian. However, she stopped working after having children and was not in the workforce when her husband entered the White House.
Former first ladies Obama and Hillary Clinton were also working mothers but did not continue with their employment while at the White House.
Leaders of the National Education Association, which is the country’s largest teachers’ union, are proud to see Biden raise the profile of the often underappreciated teaching profession.
‘She sees it up close and personally and now, in the position as first lady, not only does she give voice to that from a place of understanding, she has an opportunity to create a platform and to have influence,’ said the union’s president Becky Pringle.
As Biden returned to the classroom on Tuesday, her husband spent the day touring communities in New York and New Jersey that were devastated by the remnants of Hurricane Ida.
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