Amy White insists that she retired about six years ago, but her calendar might beg to differ.
On any given week she might be teaching yoga in the cozy studio above her Maple City garage, leading classes at Crystal Mountain, returning to Glen Lake Schools to work with students or partnering with organizations like the Glen Lake Community Library on wellness programs.
For White however, it doesn’t feel like a second career. After spending four decades teaching home economics and health education, she sees yoga as another way to do what she’s always loved most — helping people build healthier, more connected lives.
“It was the best darn job in the world,” she said of her 40 years teaching at Glen Lake Schools.
One of her recurring commitments is a class called “Hug Your Brain,” a “neural science primer” that she teaches to Glen Lake sixth graders every Wednesday. The school itself calls it an “essential” instead of an elective, which White very much appreciates.
“I love that word (essential), versus maybe you don’t need it, maybe you do,” she said.
Over her time teaching, she taught food and nutrition, sewing, family studies and parenting, and eventually a yoga like class called Core Flex that blended health education and movement.
White grew up mostly in East Grand Rapids but was born in Seattle, and came to teaching almost by accident. As a sophomore in high school, she dropped a math class after her teacher made fun of her name in front of her classmates. Embarrassed, she went to the counselor’s office to switch classes, which ended up landing her as an aide for her home economics teacher instead. Between that experience and watching her mother work as a homemaker who’d grown up on a farm and still canned produce after moving to the city, the direction of her career was inevitable.
“And then the health education just made so much sense,” she said. “It’s like, oh my gosh, why wouldn’t we learn about all this?”
About 10 years before she retired, White noticed a shift in her students. Smartphones had arrived in earnest, and with them a visible rise in depression and anxiety among teens. That shift catalyzed her to become a certified yoga instructor and began weaving the practice into her classroom.
“It was one of the best things I ever did, truly, because I got to bring it to young people and to teachers,” she said. “Just try to give people a little bit of stress management, and good things for their body. I’ve been very committed to it.”
Today, White channels that philosophy through Leap of Faith Wellness, a small studio in the extra room above her garage. She teaches Yoga Nidra which is a guided meditation also called “yoga sleep”, along with gentle flow classes and yoga with a chair as a prop.
Even after stepping back from full time classroom teaching, White never truly left the profession. She continued as the Glen Lake’s health educator and supervisor of its sex education advisory board until a replacement could be found, and currently returns each week to teach the “Hug Your Brain” class. She also recently spent time with the district’s newly hired health educator to pass on her years of knowledge.
“I’m obviously an educator that can’t keep my hand off of it,” she laughed.
That same drive to be useful and teach shows up beyond the classroom and studio as well. White is a member of the Empire Dippers, which is a cold plunge group and wellness community in its own right. She’s headed to Copenhagen this year with her fellow Dippers to connect with the cold water community there and will also be traveling to Costa Rica to colead a yoga retreat.
Travel has shaped White’s outlook maybe just as much as teaching has. Cultural exchanges through Glen Lake took her family to Germany three times, hosting visiting teachers and students before staying with them in return.
“It’s the best,” she said. “People think it’s like having strangers in your home, and we’re like, no we’re not strangers by the time we’ve talked and emailed and looked through the profile, I feel like I’m meeting a new friend.”
For all the fantastic places yoga has taken her, White says the greatest reward still comes from the profession she thought she left behind.
“One of my favorite things is when I see an old student,” she said. “It’s just, it is everything to see where they are in their life.”
Teaching, she added, “is the best profession in the world.”
