Blake Jacyszyn did not envision a career in education.

As he embarks on his first year as a full-time teacher, he cannot imagine doing anything else.

Known to students as "Mr. J," the 2018 Penn Manor High School graduate is a physical education instructor at Central Manor Elementary School.

He considered a couple other occupations before ultimately discovering he belonged in a school setting. As a freshman at Temple University, Jacyszyn started studying physical therapy because he had suffered a significant shoulder injury during his senior year at Penn Manor, which prevented him from playing basketball and competing on the track and field team.

He switched his focus to injury prevention and post-injury treatment and earned a certificate in personal training while in college.

"I started working at a gym, and I have to admit, I was not a very good personal trainer because with personal training, it's a lot of sales," Jacyszyn said. "And I didn't like that aspect too much. Like a lot of personal trainers were like, we need to keep our clients for like six months, nine months, 12 months. I always thought if I had them for three months, it was too long because it meant that I didn't teach them enough to be able to do what they do it on their own. So I spent a lot of my time with my sessions just doing fitness education, education on their body, muscle origins and insertions and functions, all of that."

To supplement his income, Jacyszyn started working as a part-time preschool aide at Manor Church's preschool. He will have some of those same students this year at Central Manor. "That was great," he said. "It was just kind of whenever they needed me, and I really, really liked working with the kids. So in order to kind of combine my fitness education and what I was enjoying with that and working with kids, I started subbing at Penn Manor through STS (Substitute Teacher Service)."

Jacyszyn completed his health and physical education certification at Lancaster Bible College. He worked as a sports performance coach at Spooky Nook and was then offered a long-term sub position teaching biology, forensics, and freshwater ecology at Penn Manor High School during the 2023-24 school year. "I just I loved it, and I was taking the material home every night and studying it myself," he said. "It was just really nice to be able to work with those students and actually have my own students. I think like one of the big moments for me was realizing this is definitely where I want to go."

Jacyszyn taught a group of seniors, and he attended graduation. "I realized I played in them walking on that stage and transitioning into that next period of life," he said. He spent that summer as a camp counselor at Spooky Nook. "I guess you could say I was having a little bit of an identity crisis," he said. "I wasn't sure if I was going to go back into education. I had taken a little hiatus from my college courses, and I was applying at other jobs."

That's when Penn Manor School District assistant superintendent Jerry Egan reached out to Jacyszyn about a long-term substitute position at Manor Middle School. "That is when I really fell in love with it because it was in the content area that I wanted, and the middle-schoolers were just amazing to work with," he said. "Being able to work with them on their sports, their fitness, their wellness education kept leading me in the direction (of being a teacher). I started my classes again, and then I got offered this job (at Central Manor). Now I'm here really excited to get to work with the elementary kids."

It will be an adjustment. "Obviously, it will be a little bit of a challenge for me. This year is going to be going from high school to middle school to elementary, with the different topics that we cover," he said. "At the middle school level, we did a lot of competitive sport and large-scale activities, whereas especially with first and second grade, it's a lot more of motor development and like teaching them the skills that will apply to those later games."

Jacyszyn took a dynamic education for primary students over the summer to help prepare. "I want to come in here, and I want to make this program mine," he said. Jacyszyn is trading places with Jason Binkley, who was Jacyszyn's physical education teacher in middle school. "He is an absolutely fantastic PE teacher," Jacyszyn said. "I career shadowed him in eighth grade, and I also subbed for him a couple times. It was really nice to be able to get in here and get that experience while I was subbing as well, and he is my mentor for this school year."

In addition to learning from veteran teachers, Jacyszyn plans to add his own touches. "I want to start to incorporate some of my own fitness background," he said. "Being that I have a background in exercise science, lifetime health, and wellness, I want to bring more of that lifetime education here, equipping with the tools to be healthy for a lifetime. The big thing I always tell my students is that if they play sports, that's amazing. It keeps them active. It gets them a lot, a really, really balanced skill set. Especially at that elementary level where they're developing so quickly and they're absorbing information at such a high rate. I want to be able to bring that program into teaching them the wellness education that they need to be healthy for the rest of their lives. And that really starts now."

Jacyszyn, who attended LeTort Elementary and Manor Middle, is happy to be working in his home district. "Penn Manor does just have a really strong sense of community and family," Jacyszyn said. "A lot of teachers are Penn Manor graduates. A lot of teachers' families go to Penn Manor. I come from a generation of Penn Manor graduates. It is really exciting is working alongside teachers that I had. And Penn Manor is really good about allowing their newer teachers, their younger teachers to step up in those team building roles, where when you're collaborating with your department, and you're learning off of each other."