An unusual childhood for a RHS teacher

RHS science teacher CJ Addington had an unusual childhood. Growing up he lived all over the world. Moving with his fathers job. His childhood consisted of living in multiple different places meeting all sort of different people and their cultures.

“I didn’t have a regular American-style childhood because my father was part of the American diplomatic core, and so he was stationed at American embassies around the world,” Addington said.

Because of his father’s job, Addington has lived in places such as Sweden, France, Germany, and Yemen. These experiences as a child allowed Addington to develop many problem solving skills and taught him how to be self-reliant at a young age. 

“One thing it did is it really taught me and my sister to be very self-reliant,” Addington said. “If you have to move a lot you just kind of learn how to adapt and how to live in a new country and how to get around in a foreign city.”

These skills translated right into his teaching job by showing him how to approach a new situation. He uses what he has learned in the other countries he has lived in to make teaching his students not only more interesting for him, but for them as well.

“I think it gave me really good training in just being able to go into a new place and figure things out, and not have to wait for other people to help me, and that was really good for me,” Addington said.

This affected the way he views the world now and how he respects and admires many cultures and religions across the globe. Addington believes that with his travel he does not just belong to his home country or culture, that he is a part of everything he was involved with.

“It gave me really good exposure to a lot of different cultures, different languages, and religions and I really appreciate it,” Addington said. “Rather than being just an American looking out into other countries, I kind of feel like I’m more a citizen of the world because I feel very comfortable going to other countries and traveling around.”

This allowed Addington to have the opportunity to travel around the world and experience everything that it has to offer. These experiences really developed his character and who he has become as an individual.

“Most people don’t really get the opportunity to travel as much as I did, just because of my dads job, but I really encourage when people do get the opportunity to definitely travel overseas to other countries, because when you come back to America I think it makes you look at the United States differently if you’ve been to other countries,” Addington said. “So I really encourage all my students and really anybody I meet at some point to try to travel somewhere else and see another country, very educational.”