HAMPTON — Twenty-one years in the Army have served Rita Raphael well in her second career as a teacher, but not as a disciplinarian.
“It’s the total opposite,” she said. “Some military do end up trying to go that route, but if you really want to reach these kids … life is a tough teacher. So they’ve already got the drill sergeants out there in their lives.
“They need something different; something that they feel is genuine and that someone genuinely really cares.”
Raphael, 45, was recently honored by Troops to Teachers for success and leadership with the program. She used it to complete Old Dominion University’s Career Switcher Program for teaching after retiring at Fort Eustis in 2009.
“I believe my 21 years in the Army really set me up for doing what I do,” Raphael said.
Her Army assignments included working as an instructor with younger soldiers — advising, training and caring for them. She also served as an equal opportunity adviser, going through sensitivity training at the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute.
“It gives me a lot of patience because I had that training,” Raphael said. “So I have a lot more patience with my kids than maybe some other adults might have.”
A native of Alameda, Calif., Raphael spent her Army career moving, save for seven years her family stayed in Fort Hood, Texas, although she was in Korea part of that time. Her overseas postings included the Netherlands, Korea, Iraq and Alaska, which is considered overseas by the military because it is not on the U.S. mainland.
In the Iraq War in 2006-2007, Raphael managed a satellite facility, working with a group that provided meals and doing equal opportunity work for her battalion commander.
As she got closer to finishing her military service, she felt drawn to continue teaching. After getting her certification, she taught one year at Passage Middle School in Newport News, where she was chosen the school’s new teacher of the year by her peers and then laid off at the end of the school year.
Raphael is in her fourth year teaching at Hampton High School, instructing career and technology students on parenting, relationships, and nutrition and wellness. Raphael sponsors three clubs at the school — Step Team; Diversity Club; and Family, Career and Community Leaders of America.
Through the latter she maintains a clothes closet for needy students and their families, which was started as an ongoing endeavor after a student’s family lost everything in a fire two years ago. The closet and clothes rack in back of her classroom help with everything from daily incidents at school that require clean clothes to clothes and prom dresses for needy students.
“We function for the most part as a family here at Hampton High School,” she said.
Raphael just started facilitating the teen program with Healthy Families Partnership for the city of Hampton. She lives in Newport News and is divorced with three adult daughters and five grandchildren.
Troops to Teachers honored 58 teachers nationwide, including 10 in Virginia, according to Joe Wargo, director of the Virginia program. In a letter of support, Hampton High Principal Sharmaine Grove described Raphael’s attributes, including “her teaching, her ethic of care and concern for students, and her willingness to do whatever it takes to ensure students’ needs are met while teaching them important life skills, career skills and interpersonal skills so they may be successful in life.”
Raphael keeps it very real in the classroom, requiring both boys and girls in her parenting class to wear weighted vests that simulate pregnancy around school, and using lifelike crying dolls that show how much brain damage can occur when a baby is shaken. Students considering careers in the military often come to her to talk about her experience, and she is forthright with them.
Raphael is completing her education specialist degree with George Washington University and plans to apply for an assistant principal position. But she’s not sure she can leave the classroom.
“I just bond with most of my kids really well, and that’s why I’m here, is because of them,” she said.
Williams can be reached by phone at 757-247-4644.
Troops to Teachers
Troops to Teachers is a U.S. Department of Defense program that helps eligible military personnel begin a new career as teachers in public schools where their skills, knowledge and experience are most needed.
More online
To see a video interview with Rita Raphael, go to dailypress.com.
