Jilecia Woodhouse was sure she wanted to be a doctor. That’s why she majored in biology at Penn State, and it’s why she pursued a master’s in biomedical science.

Then one day in grad school, she took stock of her life. She was working as a lab assistant and didn’t have much money or much free time. She realized it would be another decade before she achieved her dream of becoming a doctor. “I decided I didn’t want to do it anymore,” she said. “I made a decision to choose living my life over living for a ‘career.’ I just wasn’t sure what I would do instead.”

As an undergraduate, she’d gotten a second degree in psychology, and so she started working as a paraprofessional in behavioral health and a biology lab teacher at a school in Pennsylvania.

“I was helping the kids, and I started to fall in love with the work,” Jilecia said. “I started applying for jobs in education. My prayer was that my career path would give me passion and a purpose. That’s what I wanted more than anything else – more than a salary or status. I wanted passion and purpose.”

Her first classroom job was as an assistant teacher in a special education classroom at another school in Pennsylvania. After a year, she decided to make another big life decision: She wanted to move out of the state.

She started looking for jobs in New York City, which is how she discovered Children’s Aid. There was a position open for a fifth-grade math teacher. And although she’d never taught math, she decided to prepare a lesson plan and apply for the job anyway.

By the time of her interview, the math teacher role had already been filled, but Jilecia’s demonstration impressed the academic dean so much that she asked Jilecia to apply for a different position: science teacher.

“I thought I loved science too much to teach it,” she said. “But I demonstrated a lesson right on the spot. A weekend later, I packed up my bags and moved out of Pennsylvania. And I started at Children’s Aid College Prep on my birthday in February 2018.”

In the classroom, Jilecia likes to practice what she calls “edutainment” – entertainment while learning. Although students sometimes think of science as a tedious subject, Jilecia wants her classroom to be a space for fun and for learning. Her mantra is “Teach to Educate, Educate to Inspire.” And she credits her unique and successful educational approach to the support of her mentor, Meenu Jagtiana, and her principal, Dr. Robin Fleshman.

She designs engaging lessons and investigations for her students. She allows them to listen to music while they work – so long as they are working. And she’s always eager to show them her dance moves while teaching.

From her childhood in Kingston, Jamaica, through adulthood, sports and dance have been two of her favorite pastimes and passions.  “Dance is where my heart and my soul lie, and it’s my best way of expressing myself. I enjoy sharing that part of me with my students,” she said. “In my classroom, we talk, we dance, and we learn. I want my students to feel like human beings and be their true selves in my presence.”  

Jilecia also takes pride in being a Black woman leading a science curriculum. She started her career at Children’s Aid as a sixth-grade teacher, and she’s now the head of the science department within her charter.

“Representation matters,” she said. “Society likes to place women in nurturing fields, like social studies or English. Science is about thinking, inquiring and developing new understandings of our world. Every day in science is a challenge. And sometimes our society tells women that they can’t take on that challenge. But we’re pushing the envelope now. I set out to be an example to my students that you can go against the parameters of the script that society has written for them.”

Jilecia derives a lot of joy from setting her students up to have successful career in science, whether it’s engineering, medicine, or education.

“I didn’t become a doctor, but I’m teaching science,” she said. “I’m helping the next generation become the thing that I once aspired to be. And I’m still doing what I love. I’m still a scientist. Every day in the classroom, I’m thinking on my feet and reinventing myself and pushing myself to the limit. My classroom is a laboratory every day, and I love working in it.”