Craig Middle School

Jordan Parker isn’t unfamiliar with the first day of school. She has experienced it as a student, as a mom, and as a teacher’s aide. But last Wednesday was her first time to experience it as a full-time teacher.

“The first day was such a strange experience for me,” said Parker, who teaches sixth-grade ELA/Reading at Craig Middle School. “I’ve been so used to being the aide in the classroom that assisted the teacher, but now I’m the teacher. I often had to remind myself, ‘Oh, yeah, you’re the teacher. You make the call on what to do next.’ "

But Parker and her students made it through the first day and week seamlessly, getting to know each other before settling in for the second week on Monday. Parker made the transition smoother by giving the students something to capture their attention.

Not one of the students who entered Parker’s classroom on the first day of school was born before the hit TV show Friends completed its 10-year run on NBC in May 2004.

The only way any of them have heard of it is via re-runs in syndication, clips on social media, or listening to their parents or others talk about the show. Parker is a Friends super fan, so much so that she has decorated her room with quotes from the show that relate to everything from classroom rules and expectations to inspirational thoughts to examples of parts of speech.

She even has a cardboard cutout of the couch from the Central Perk coffee shop, which was the setting for thousands of scenes during the show’s run. Instead of numbered tables telling students where to sit, they are designated with pictures of the main characters.

Who knew Ross and Rachel, Monica and Chandler, and Joey and Phoebe's influence would extend to a middle school classroom in Abilene, Texas?

“Friends is my favorite show, and I embrace every bit of it,” Parker said. “Some students love the theme and got excited and asked more questions about why I chose the decor.”

Parker’s use of something she loves and believes will relate to students is one of the reasons why one of the teachers she worked with in another Big Country school district the previous four years convinced her to become a teacher. Parker graduated from New Caney High School in 2014 with plans to attend culinary school and become a pastry chef. 

But she was soon married with a 7-month-old baby and a husband in the United States Army. She accepted a position in the RTI lab at New Caney ISD. Not long after her husband’s honorable discharge from the military, COVID hit the country. They moved to Abilene, where she went to work in an area school district and her husband with AISD. They started their new jobs in the fall of 2020, just as schools nationwide were re-opening. 

“I met some very influential co-workers, and one of them looked at me one day and said, ‘Jordan, you need to be a teacher. I don't see your kind of love for these kids very often,’ ” Parker said. “I took that to heart, went home, and told my husband I would return to school.”

She enrolled in McMurry University’s “Aides-to-Teachers” program in the Fall of 2021, graduated last spring (May 2024), and was hired by Craig principal Deb Stewart to join her team. She said the McMurry program gave Parker a good foundation, but her classroom experience prepped her for her first full-time job as a teacher.

“When I (started in the classroom) in 2020, we were still sending people home for 14 days if exposed to COVID, so there were days when I looked around the classroom for the teacher, and I was it,” Parker said. “As I went along, I worked with a mentor teacher who would let me teach the lesson if asked.”

She said her in-laws – both in AISD, including her mother-in-law, Abilene High Assistant Principal Tracy Parker – and husband, Taylor, an in-school suspension aide at Craig, have been tremendously helpful in the transition. The people she has encountered on her path to becoming a teacher have made the journey worth it.

“When I look back on where I thought I would be and where I am now, the one word that comes to mind is ‘blessed,’ ” Parker said. “I know on the hard days, I’ll have people I can call who will understand. And if I don’t understand something, I know I have people I can lean on and ask. The experience is a blessing, including the road to get here. I’m ready.”