Neurodivergent (Headcanon) Alley: Janine Teagues (Abbott Elementary)

 

As a classic Second Autistic-Coded Character I Spot, Janine was the obvious Abbott Elementary choice to write about after Gregory. I (finally!) started watching the show after hearing about Gregory as a great example of a Black autistic character, so I knew about him going in. But right from the first episode, I was like, “Wait, why didn’t anybody tell me about Janine?!?” Man, oh man, Janine Teagues, my beloved!

Janine is very much in the Leslie Knope vein of AuDHD coding. She’s a super upbeat person who will continue to find energy even after her stores have been depleted, usually in service to the school. We first meet her in her second year of teaching, and her determination towards ingenuity and problem-solving is contrasted against veteran teachers like Barbara and Melissa. When it comes to weighing the needs of the students against the chronically underfunded Abbott, Janine hasn’t yet had the fight knocked out of her. She’s convinced that there’s nothing she can’t tackle.

To go a step further, she feels like she has to tackle everything Abbott throws at her. Janine’s compassion and empathy can be seen for miles. She wants the best for her kids, and she absolutely wants them to have opportunities that aren’t being afforded to them. Whether that’s trying to fix a flickering hallway light (despite her fear of heights) or finding a creative low-cost way to bring librarians to the district, she takes every problem on herself and is wholly unable to let things lie. Often, her dogged problem-solving brings up bigger problems in the short run, like when she campaigns to switch the juice served in the cafeteria and it results in the kids constantly needing bathroom breaks. But of course, she’s just as determined to fix those problems too.

Janine is a well-meaning meddler, frequently offering input that hasn’t been requested and doing everything in her power to rally less-than-enthusiastic troops. Some of the other characters can find her exhausting to be around—especially in the early seasons, Barbara and Melissa both run hot-and-cold on her, and Ava never runs out of Janine-related insults. And I definitely get how Janine can be seen as “too much.” She just cares about everything, all the time, and in truth, I’m sure it’s much more exhausting to be her than to be around her.

When it comes to social interactions, Janine struggles a lot. Her try-hard attitude extends to her relationships, which means she can come on too strong too quickly. In season 1, her desperation for Barbara’s approval and mentorship is obvious, while at the same time also wanting Barbara to see her as an equal colleague. When she realizes Jacob hadn’t told her he had a boyfriend, she spirals about them being “just work friends” and goes overboard in an attempt to upgrade their status to real friends. She gets stuck in her relationship with Tariq for way too long because it’s so hard for her to stand up for herself the way she stands up for others, and she puts up with a lot of dismissive, indifferent treatment. Not to mention, Janine’s first love, always and forever, is to Abbott, and her devotion to her work and the kids can get in the way of her dating life.

It can be painful to watch Janine flail at times, because she has so much love to give and so desperately wants to make things better for people, and it’s hard to see her encounter people who mock her for that or discount her because of her relentless cheerfulness. I see how she gives endless space to others but can be really hard on herself. That said, Abbott Elementary has all the Big Neurodivergent Energy, and a big part of that is making spaces for characters to be accepted as who they are. Over the course of the show, Janine has been able to foster some of the relationships she wants. And even though plenty of her colleagues still think she can be annoying, they also recognize how hard she works every day to make Abbott better. These days, they’re much more likely to include her and root for her. Not that they never give her a hard time, but it comes more from a place of love—she’s their annoying super-upbeat teacher who never quits, and they value her for it.