Oh that seems like probably the hardest job to have with that particular condition. Imagine having to explain to a new group of 10-year-olds every year why you have a conjoined twin. And I’m sure there are kids who say not nice things about them.
I had a science teacher in 5th grade who pretended to die of mercury poisoning because a kid broke a thermometer, complete with having a substitute coming in the next three days
Imagine being in class trying to sneakily do something to make a friend laugh, and while you're midway through your class clown routine, you start to feel like something is watching you.
You slowly turn around, sweating, heart racing, and lock eyes with the most menacing glare imaginable. Thousands of years of pain and suffering fill your mind as you watch the head slowly begin to lift off the shoulder. Through the silence, you hear the AC unit humming in the ceiling. Then, the automated shades click on, and the blackout fabric slowly begins their descent down the window. Taking away not only the sunlight but any remaining sense of hope as well.
She then effortlessly rises from her chair without breaking her unwavering focus solely on you. You witness a second of her legs and arms beginning to twist and twitch as she leaps up over her desk. Before she can land, the lights in the room shut off, leaving only the faint red glow on the emergency exit sign. The temperature begins to drop rapidly, and you frantically reach out into the dark void, looking for a classmate to save you.
Teacher here. I joke about having invisible eyes all around my head, but having a literal extra person to keep an eye on things would be real cool. Literal superpower with teaching kids haha.
My six year olds think I have eyes n the back of my head. I tell them they'll get them when they have babies but if they try to find them n My hair they'll never be able to have them.
They're astonished at how I know what happened when I'm not around or how I give them advice and when they don't listen things happen like I tell them. They even wonder how I know who's talking 🤣
HAHAHA my twins are the same :') they think they are so quietly whispering and not making noise. But they talk louder than my deaf grandma and bags of snacks make noise.
I would imagine it might be hard to use her two limbs with her eyes closed though? They both have one leg and one arm.
Honestly one of the degrees should have been counted as audits rather than having to pay double tuition. I mean, Im sure they both decided it's better to both have degrees. But fuck the school for not making a special circumstance out of it.
But does the one not getting paid work? Or does she instigate the kids and sabotage her sister? Imagine what it’s like when they get in a fight…like I wonder who’s got more control of the legs…
Interesting how only one is married and in love. I mean they’re two different minds but sharing a body and being in the same place and same conversations and same experiences with the husband, but only one is in love and married?
Never mind one writing on the board, the other watching the little rascals.
Literal eyes in the back of their heads.
The college is pretty ruthless. As an employee they are not doing the work of two people, even if they have a greater capacity to keep an eye on the class.
The possibilities are endless.Brittany: "Abby will be absent today so its just me teaching" Abby wears sunglasses and doesn't say a word the entire day.
To their slight benefit, I doubt it’s a shock to any of the kids or parents when they show up at the start of the year. I bet they’re a well known pair in their school system and community.
Doesn’t make comments and jokes easier though, but hopefully they can turn their experience into good lessons
If I recall their situation correctly, the even more fucked up part is that she would be carrying around her slowly necrotic twin until she herself died.
I believe each twin controls their own half of the body, and they have a couple organs that are duplicated, but I don’t recall which ones. If they share a heart, and other vital organs her dead sister would just be there, and continue to be dead without actually decomposing.
If they don’t share vital organs, then she would slowly become necrotic until they both died, and the living twin would feel an immense strain on her own organs.
I've never met them but they're a couple years older than me and from broadly the same area. I know people who went to college with them. They're definitely a known entity
Even when I was growing up, talking shit about them got you pushback. And we were noxious little shits back then compared to today. It was partially cause it's disrespectful but also because Minnesotans fucking love any claim to relevancy we can get and they're celebrities. Did you get interviewed by Oprah? Yeah I don't think so buddy.
Yeah, you nailed the MN mindset. I've seen them out and about a few times. I feel terrible when I saw them once and kind of jumped. It was my first day on a job so I was pretty nervous and I turned around they were right next to me. My brain took a second to process what I was seeing and I was amped up because of my first day. They did not seem pleased.
I met them when they went to bethel university. they're instantly recognizable but it is a little weird how they keep ending up in the news lol out here they're just normal people but it feels like the rest of the country sees them as a freak show or something.
On the other hand it gives them the opportunity to expose kids growing up to differently abled people and helps to guide them on understanding that and having important questions answered in their formative years.
I would imagine it's easier to not be judgmental about different people if you're exposed to them early on and have that curiosity explored in a healthy way.
This is real. If I’m a 5th grader and one of my teachers is two people, just about any other kind of human condition would become less polarizing/abnormal to me. “Why’s ____ weird? One of my teachers literally had two heads.”
Yup. Good neighbor friend was deaf, another one had half an arm due to a car crash, another (while this isn't a disability) had a big, textured portwine birthmark over most of her face. Everybody's normal after the first time--and it sticks with you that those things and plenty of other things are normal and fine.
I've seen a few interviews and the one sister in particular (can't remember which is which, sorry) seems to be quite sassy. They've probably heard it all before and by this point, nothing a kid says will effect them long term. They've made it this far already.
Having been a teacher, you'd be surprised. Kids are shockingly accepting and honest little beings. Their honesty is refreshing. I've got Parkinson's these days so I only substitute teach now. Kids are dramatically less awkward than adults when you tell them. They'll just straight ask why my hands shake. And then you tell them and instead of being weird about it they'll say "Damn, that sucks" with perfectly sincere empathy and then ask how you text on your phone.
And they're going to say mean shit to anyone and everyone. Don't think you're safe because you look normal. They'll find your weakness and blurt it out.
As someone who has lived with a fairly mild physical disability since birth, it is 100% the adults who have always had an issue with my disability more than the kids(even when I was a child). Kids will stare, sometimes mimic(toddlers), and ask but will still mostly treat me like they do everyone else(for better or worse). Adults will add the shaming aspect and act like I shouldn’t be interacted with “because it’s rude” or they don’t want to hurt me/my feelings(when really it’s more about them not wanting to feel uncomfortable). The fake act of caring while being actively shunned through dismissive pity is so “othering” and 100% worse(stigmatizing really).
It’s also interesting to note that no kid has ever come up to me to tell me that my disability inspired them or if they can pray for me because I’m especially cared about by god…Yikes! I sometimes really appreciate the authenticity kids tend to display.
It’s all fun until you call the rude lady in church a dick nose. I have been told I was honest in that assessment, but it was not the place for it. Kids 🤷
I subbed for a few years. I never really got any of the behavior issues people talked about. I think part of it is just that people are expecting kids to be adults and tend to attribute to malice what is often just poor impulse control and a developing brain.
%100 true. I'm missing a finger and when adults learn about it they flinch and some even have a look of horror on their face. Kids; super chill about it and get up close to look at it. Kind of refreshing.
You know that trick where you disconnect your index finger? I do that trick but sneeze in the middle of it and "lose" my finger. Kids are so sweet they crawl around to help me look for it.
My English teacher's hands shook when I was little and an older boy said it was because she was shooting drugs into her butt behind the school at lunch.
So I never thought to ask because it had already been answered. It had been answered terribly but it was an answer.
Hey that said, one of them can explain the lesson while the other one stares intensely making sure no one is slacking or snickering behind the teacher's back.
Also cheating on their exams would be twice as hard with 2 inspectors.
Now I'm imagining them filling the white board up from either side until they meet in the middle in half the time it would take a single person to fill it up.
Theyre probably use to it, and use their ability to deflect those awful things and instead teach acceptance. I think it would be incredibly hard, but theyve been conjoined for 30 somethings years? Thats hard in itself. Think its beautiful they chose to become teachers.
When I was in the 4th grade I had a teacher who had a birth defect that left her with “T-Rex” arms (her description). On the first day of school she took a little bit of time, maybe 15-20 minutes, where she addressed it. I remember she told us the medical name (can’t remember what it was), talked about challenges she had growing up and how she adapted her life to be able to do anything we could do. She had prosthetics she could wear but they were uncomfortable so she avoided using them. But she did put them on to show us, the only time I ever saw her using them. She addressed our questions and we moved on. Not a single kid teased her, made fun of her, or exhibited any signs of being a bully. If anything, she probably made us all a bit more empathetic that day.
from their documentary show the school was actually a smidge concerned about how the kids would react and had the gals come in and do a Q&A session and then had them leave and asked the kids if they had any more questions with them gone and the kids were pretty much fine. if they were teaching seventh grade maybe it would have been a different story, but that age seemed to be ok with them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M36jxR_6lIE
on the contrary, i think kids would be the best demographic to work with. bigotries are taught, not innate, and kids have a far more adaptable sense of normality than adults.
Pretty sure they've been dealing with people saying not nice things their entire lives. It sounds like a good opportunity to teach kids that there are all kinds of people in the world. I'd bet money that they are a lot of their students favorite teachers because I would imagine they have tremendous empathy and really love their job.
Honestly, because of them, they could change some kids lives in a good way. Spending 8 months or whatever with them as a teacher and learning they are no different aside from a wildly rare birth condition, could teach some kids empathy who didn't otherwise learn it at home.
Oh man when I was in 5th/6th grade I was such a shithead. My friends and I would tear substitute teachers apart saying the meanest things we could think of.
So I live in roughly the same area as them. It absolutely threw me off guard the first time but luckily I didn't feel like too much of an ass since they didn't seem to notice me.
It's fucking amazing how full grown adults will talk when they're out of earshot of them. I knew they were in a target before I saw them just from hearing people gossip out loud about them after seeing them. Adults can be just as bad they're just a bit better at hiding it.
I imagine the parents of the students get a letter explaining their child’s teacher for the year will have two heads or something like that. Idk I can’t imagine it going well without warning or a heads up.
I mean to be fair, 5th grade to me felt like the last time my classmates acted politely towards one another, maybe before the hormones started kicking in. It was 6th grade and onwards where the problems started. Just a personal experience I know.
At the same time it's a wonderful thing to teach kids about different being ok and kids meeting different kinds of people makes them more open to others.
5th graders are the worst. When I was in 6th grade nobody liked the 5th graders. Same story with 8th graders. With 5th graders, they're near the top of the food chain, but not quite there yet. So they have all of the balls and none of the earned respect of the 6th graders. In year 7, you get away with stuff because "oh look it's a cute year 7 they're so short and funny looking they just got here cut them some slack" in year 8 you lose that because youve been there for a year already and lost the cute privileges. Year 9s are just assholes. Year 10s are where they start to mature. Year 11s go back to being assholes again, but in a more funny way, and year 12s are too busy with school and work and all that nonsense to have any fun.
lmao same. may the deities bless being southern california and its abundance of marijuana. no seriously, normally my adhd would have me too distracted to finish that lol. anyways, everyone has different experiences. elon seems lonely. i wish the best to the twins. and youre cool too mate
Imagine 25 years later telling people you had a two-headed teacher in elementary school but all of your friends tell you to go fuck yourself because you're so full of shit.
It's kind of fascinating to think about. Obviously they can't teach two different classes, but they do have separate consciousnesses, so to some degree it is like having two teachers in the same classroom. They can definitely pay attention to more kids than just a solo teacher, but they can't physically help a larger number of kids. I don't really have an answer I'm just rambling.
nah I get it and think it's valid. It's very established to only have/pay for one teacher in a classroom, so this isn't as egregious as e.g. if they were working in an office or other place where both could work simultaneously.
so to some degree it is like having two teachers in the same classroom
In my experience from hearing about co-teachers from my aunt and fiancé (both teachers), it's not usually that beneficial to have another teacher involved. Maybe they would be unique since they're so intertwined and have to be used to working together, but from what I've heard it usually just leads to mix ups in classroom/lesson planning, with inconsistent leadership and instruction for the kids.
Or even worse, the co-teacher starts bad mouthing the main teacher and turns the entire team against the main teacher because she's butt hurt about being corrected on her shitty work, leading to the main teacher quitting mid year to go work at a prison...
I'm pretty sure that if I was one half, I would have quit already. "STFU Suzy, kids are fucking stupid anyway. Go cry to your mom that you can't do fractions, IDGAF!"
Not unless they use it to their advantage and deck their classroom out with fantasy/sci-fi things, like Harry Potter or something, and just play the role while teaching. It'll definitely make the job go by faster, kids will retain the lecture because they had fun learning and she'll build a cool reputation.
hopefully they get the teaching student loan forgiveness. Although honestly if they just made it 0% APR on the student loan I would be happy, I've made negative 2k progress on my student loan in the last 5 years, that's right I owe 2k more now than when i started 5 years ago.
Imagine if one of their heads faced the other way though, one of them would have “eyes in the back of their head”. That would give them such an advantage as a teach. lol
It seems psychologically damaging to those young minds. How the fuck are you not going to have nightmares of your teacher writing on the board and staring at you at the same time from different heads? Like I'm not even trying to disrespect them, it's just a fact that it's going to come with a huge shock.
Well the good news is that 1 of them can get a wfh job to do at the same time. Then they underperform and claim it was disability based performance issues, also its not legal to descriminate against hireing her.
It may be an outlier, but my son's 5th grade class would welcome them with open arms. There are 2 special needs students in the class and every child treats them as royalty.
They have come to accept differences in people. I'm sure the school/teachers have a lot to do with it, but it gives me hope!
If they did more knowledge work, they would probably be able to find a job that pays them separately.
But a teacher, especially for small children, requires them to be physically engaged with the children. Their medical condition really prevents them from being able to teach two different classes. So it doesn't make sense to pay them double the normal teacher pay, when they can they only do the work of a single teacher. Unless they are able to handle more kids in class. But I am fairly sure each School district has soft limits on classroom sizes
But if they were an engineer or programmer (knowledge work; ideally remote work) where their physical limitations would not be as relevant and should be able to get 2 incomes
Source: every person in my immediate family is a public school teacher.
Eh sounds like a job that doesn’t need a second brain. So I guess it’s on them, obviously they’d be paid as one if they’re a teacher. The fuck they gonna do? Teach 2 different classes at the same time? lol
They really picked the wrong career. They could have easily did something like accounting or anything that involves interaction with a computer and each head would just interact with the computer for each of their own salary
The only upper elementary teachers literally forced into Ms. first name title- if they are both Ms. Hensel and they are identical, no student will ever bother to differentiate.
They were actually my teacher in elementary school for English cause I was in a special class (behavioral issues and dislexia, ik what a mix) but they would finish each other’s sentences, talk at the same time, and they typed super fast. Always really nice tho, miss them
I hope that they get full health care coverage without having to add the cost of another person but I’m sure the health insurance company finds ways to fuck them over.
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u/viggicat531 1d ago
I sure hope they are not working for that same college....