By ANNA ROBINSON
Staff Writer
While most little girls dreamed of becoming princesses, ballerinas and superstars, math teacher Justine Lane of Avon dreamed of becoming a baton twirler.
Abandoning her original dream, she became an electrical engineer, traveling to foreign countries doing international mergers and acquisitions, before becoming a math teacher at Communications High School. It is a job that she says she loves, despite the contrast from her childhood desires.
“You know, teaching is not the most glamorous career in the whole wide world, but I am absolutely sure that I’d laughed more at work than anybody I know,” she said.
The Avon resident credited her love of teaching to the students.
“I always say I have the best teaching job in New Jersey. The kids just make it very easy and very pleasant,” Lane said.
Another benefit her job also gives her is enough time to spend with her three children.
“I still have time to manage my kids after school with homework and friends and guitar lessons,” she said. “This allows me to have the balance I need right now.”
And the students love her back, according to multiple student interviews. Though Lane said she does not have a favorite student, she loves them all the same.
“If I did, I wouldn’t tell…” she added.
“She’s a great teacher, Ms. Lane. Her class, well… I’m not a huge math person, but she made it interesting, she made it a comfortable setting. I loved her,” said senior Sean Cavanagh of Middletown who had Lane for Pre-Calculus last year.
Junior Alex Burke of Farmingdale and senior Alek Lowrie of Avon said they both “wholeheartedly” agreed with Cavanagh.
“Lane does an amazing job at personalizing her curriculum to accommodate for each of her students,” said Burke. “You can literally ask anyone how amazing Lane is.”
Though you can find her at school lecturing about the Quadratic formula and how to solve for ‘x,’ Lane still twirls in her free time.
“There’s a couple of teachers that baton twirl with me every once in a while, secretly. But my baton is here,” she said.
