Eastipedia: Janel Cates

The new FACS teacher, Janel Cates is glad to see all the nice changes here at East from where she was before for the last 32 years. Cates is teaching four levels of Apparel construction, two levels of interior design, and one new course to East called Fashion Merchandising that begins second semester. Cates has taught all of theses classes before at other schools.

Cates had always had a hobby for sewing and took all of the classes in her high school for it and found her love for sewing and design. When she was in the beginning of high school she never thought about her career for the future, but during her junior year of high school she decided to figure out what she wanted to go into for a career by talking to her school’s counselor.

Cates’ school counselor told her, “Find something you like and make a career out of it.”

She realized that her real hobby had always been sewing and design, making that her obvious choice for a career. Cates did just that by enrolling into K-State’s design program and taking fashion designing classes at Broadmoor later to add on to her skills and knowledge of design. She even worked for a fashion designer for a while after college. The first two years with her twin girls were tough, but she made it through and continued with her design career and began teaching what she loved.

Teaching had been in her family before, her mom taught second grade, but her family life is a little bit different than most. She is the mother of twins, her sisters are twins, daughter of a twin and her brother is also expecting twins soon. The first two years with her twin girls were tough, but she made it through and continued with her design career and began teaching what she loved.Before coming to East this year she taught at Trailridge Middle School, Shawnee Mission West and Broadmoor.

She was amazed when one student held the door open for her instead of swinging it open as she expected.

“Student’s here have such good manners,” Cates said, “It’s a refreshing change from other places.”

Another day in class Cates passed out candy to her students and was planning on finding candy wrappers all over the floor, but not one candy wrapper was left. Cates believes manners and the skills you learn while taking a FACS class help you later in life skills you can use as an adult.

“It’s amazing to see the skills kids use from the Family and Consumer Science classes later in life.” Cates Said