When asked to picture a psychic, an Upper School Spanish Teacher does not typically come to mind. However, to her students, that’s exactly what Julie Cove is.

     Students claim that Cove has psychic abilities to detect phones and video games. Cove attributes her sixth sense to the fact that she has been around students for 38 years of her life, so she knows how they think and when something is wrong.

     Cove, originally born in California, describes herself as “a mixed bag of Skittles,” as her mother is Japanese and her father Taiwanese. When Cove was six years old, her family moved to Ecuador, unable to speak much Spanish.

     She attended a Spanish-speaking primary school before attending one of only two American high schools in Quito, becoming part of the 2 percent of people in Ecuador who speak English. 

     Cove received a Bachelor’s degree in Hotel Management before moving to China. There, she met her husband, Steven. He lived in Massachusetts, so Cove left China and moved to the States to be with him.

     When the two of them wanted to start a family, Cove made the decision to go back to school. “I decided that being a restaurant manager wasn’t the right profession for the amount of dedication and time I wanted to spend with my child,” she said.

     Cove went back to school to receive her master’s in Education with a concentration in Spanish. After three years of studying, she completed her master’s while being 9 months pregnant with her daughter, taking night classes, and working more than 50 hours a week managing a Chuck E. Cheese.

     Cove chose to work in education because she “wanted to share a little bit of the struggles that [she] went through learning cultures and languages. [She] also wanted to empower young minds.” She began teaching in Massachusetts while raising her family.

     When her husband complained about shoveling the snow, Cove began to look for places in the South to live, which is how she found Shorecrest. “I’m a doer, not a complainer, so if somebody gives me a complaint, I flip it around and find a solution,” said Cove.

     Cove is a firm believer in forming connections with her students, encouraging them to learn and enjoy school. “When you make relationships with your kids, they really start learning,” she said.

     Cove loves spending time with her 13-year-old Shar Pei, Tutu, and pet ferret, Twixie. She also enjoys meditating, yoga, gardening, and being outdoors. “I just feel like the world is a beautiful artwork,” she said.

     When she first started at Shorecrest, Cove struggled to find the right teaching style. She said that growing up, she always wanted to fit in until she realized that she needed to stop focusing on herself. “When we get out of our own heads and ask [ourselves], ‘what can I do to serve others?’ that’s when you really stop having problems of your own,” said Cove. “The only way I can be my best is if I can be my best self.”