Forging a new path: US First Lady goes to work
WASHINGTON: Jill Biden is going back to her whiteboard.
After months of teaching writing and English to community college students in boxes on a computer screen, the first lady resumes teaching in person on Tuesday from a classroom at Northern Virginia Community College, where she has worked since 2009.
She is the first ever first lady to leave the White House and log hours at a full-time job.
“There are some things you just can’t replace, and I can’t wait to get back in the classroom,” she recently told Good Housekeeping magazine.
The first lady has been anxious to see her students in person after more than a year of virtual teaching brought on by a pandemic.
A working first lady is a “big deal”, said Tammy Vigil, a Boston University communications professor who wrote a book about former first ladies Michelle Obama and Melania Trump.
The nation’s early first ladies did not work outside the home, especially when home was the White House. They supported their husbands, raised children and performed the role of hostess. Some first ladies acted as special ambassadors for their husbands. Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama were working mothers who decided against continuing their careers in the White House.
Jill Biden, 70, is forging a new path for herself and her successors. The first lady has said she always wanted to be a career woman. She taught at the Virginia community college during the eight years that her husband was vice-president and wasn’t going to give it up. “Teaching isn’t just what I do. It’s who I am,” she has said.