Mrs. Tara Harrington’s job demands that she spend around six hours for five days a week concentrating on teaching her various art and ceramics classes. Some may wonder what she does outside of school, and what led her to spend all this time educating students in the fine arts.

She knew she wanted to be a teacher when she was young. “I always knew I had to be a teacher. I used to make my sisters play ‘school,’” she said in the interview. Harrington already knew what type of job she wanted, but there were various departments and topics that could be taught. How would she ever know which one it would be? That was easier than one might believe.

Also at a young age, she realized that art was a subject she loved. “I decided to be an art teacher in second grade, when all of our ‘trees’ were hung up and mine looked like a tree,” Harrington said.

Ever since she was a young girl, Harrington knew from the moment her tree looked like a real, live tree compared to everyone of the other children’s trees, that she wanted to teach art. It was crystal clear that she had the talent at her young age. Her talents would just increase and grow as time progressed.

As Harrington grew into an adolescent and into an adult, she dealt with some major changes in her life. She was born in Montreal, Canada and moved to East Greenwich, Rhode Island when she was just fourteen years old. As a teenager, Harrington went to East Greenwich High School.

After earning her high school diploma, she attended Rhode Island College. Following another four years of studying and completing numerous courses, Harrington received her Bachelor’s degree. Mrs. Harrington’s efforts in working two jobs paid off when she paid for her college tuition, and while there, she attended school full-time. This demonstrates her hard work ethic, which served her well years later when she began her life after college.

After college, Harrington became a substitute teacher in three districts. One substitute teaching job was a long-term position, and this was at the former North Kingstown High School, years ago. The school did not hire Harrington afterwards, and she quit teaching for the time being.

However, she did get a job at a daycare. The job was “awful” for her, though. She did not enjoy teaching at the daycare and she left the job after three months of working there. Eventually, Harrington went back to substitute teaching at various schools, and she taught at Forest Park Elementary School for coworker Mrs. Janice Strain, who was out on maternity leave at the time. She ended up staying there for two years.

After these two years, a job opened up at North Kingstown High School. Harrington applied for the position and she was hired as an art and graphic design teacher. When she was working at the high school, five other art teachers shared the art classrooms with her.

Harrington soon became comfortable with her job and eventually learned how to teach Ceramics. In her words, “I learned how to teach Ceramics from my mentor Mr. Donald Annaldo, who retired 12 years ago.”

In a turn of unfortunate events, the fine arts classes declined from six or seven full-time teachers to just a handful of teachers. “Over the last six to seven years, the Art Department has shrunk to two-and-a-half teachers,” she said.

In spite of the downsizing in the Art Department, which has disappointed Harrington greatly, she continues to teach her art and ceramics classes in her own way. She has been a mom for quite some time now and has two kids, eleven-year-old William and eight-year-old Elizabeth.

Harrington has always loved art, even though she now paints less at home then before. In any free time that she receives, Harrington binge-watches Netflix, reads, draws, sews, and plays with her kids.

Many students agree that Harrington is a good teacher, and some have even come to regard her as one of their favorite teachers.

Harrington’s profession and skill in art gives her a lot of projects to do, but she only has a limited amount of time to complete such projects. “I would describe myself as a juggler: too many projects, so little time,” she said.

Even so, Harrington, like many of her colleagues and fellow educators, successfully manages to juggle teaching teenagers and parenting children of her own.