Anne Phaneuf and daughter Claire Mackay showed their support for raising autism awareness.
Anne Phaneuf is a quiet hero. She has made an impact on a population of Nantucket that is hard to reach, and even harder to establish trust with: high school students. But she sure has done it. Going into her 11th year as part of Nantucket High School, Phaneuf not only teaches English, but also currently sits as the English Department Head at NHS. Having started out in 1996 as a teaching assistant in the computer lab, she explained to us why she has remained a vital part of the fabric of Nantucket for so long.
Phaneuf didn’t intend to become a teacher starting out in her career. “I was a writer, I wrote for corporations and did a lot of marketing writing and speech writing,” said Phaneuf about her life at 29 years old, “I saw an ad in the Boston Globe; The Inky was advertising for a general assignment reporter. In April of 1990 I got here.”
After leaving and returning again because she “missed Nantucket so much that I wanted to come back,” Phaneuf did the Nantucket shuffle: “I worked 1000 jobs and lived in 1000 different places on Nantucket.”
In 1995, a friend asked Phaneuf to mentor her son with his writing exhibition at Nantucket High School. “I really liked the exchange,” she said about the experience, “It was wild to me that there was something that I could give him. I think that sense of giving back was very rewarding because it wasn’t about the paycheck.”
“I had no experience teaching when they hired me,” she said about her early days, “I had my bachelors and my masters, and there was an English and Social Studies opening. In the fall of 1997 I began teaching.”
Ever since then, Phaneuf has been a part of the high school here on the Island. She now has two children, Claire and Luke, with her husband David Mackay. Most recently, she is best known for winning Nantucket Golf Club’s first award for excellence in teaching. The Nantucket Golf Club also awards two students annual with complete four-year scholarships to college. “I’m very impressed by their dedication. They don’t have to give back to the kids of Nantucket, but they do,” said Phaneuf, “They look to every organization that supports children here and they support them.”
When Phaneuf, along with Nantucket Elementary School teacher Nina Slade, won the $15,000 award, she said, “It was overwhelming, all of the support I received from the teachers. The Nantucket Golf Club was so gracious to us,” she continued, “As much as the money was amazing, it was the people saying ‘Thank you.’”
Nantucket, she feels, is a special and amazing place. “I was living in Boston before I moved to Nantucket, and I was quote-un-quote successful, but I was lonely. If you work hard and if you make a contribution here, it’s felt. I think it’s recognized and you are embraced. I feel appreciated here,” she said, “I know what’s ahead of me is exhausting: it’s grading papers until 11:00 at night, it’s reading Crime and Punishment.”
“I really think the magical parts of teaching are those moments in the classroom that you don’t plan on,” she said, “People say as a teacher you have to give so much to your students, but really, the students give so much to me.”
Stay tuned to Plum for more on our Plum 98, highlighting the giving members of our Island community.
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