Abby and Brittany Hensel, 34-year-old conjoined twins, are breaking new ground as elementary school teachers. They graduated from college over ten years ago and have overcome many obstacles related to their unique condition. The twins share one body but have separate heads, hearts, stomachs, spines, and lungs.
Abby and Brittany finished university about ten years ago, and since then, they’ve been making an impact, not just because of their teaching skills but also because of their approach to compensation. Despite being conjoined since birth due to a rare condition called dicephalic parapagus twinning, the twins have thrived in their teaching careers.
They each have their own hearts, stomachs, spines, and lungs, and have worked together as a team to teach math to fourth and fifth graders at an elementary school since 2013. What really makes them stand out is their incredible coordination and academic success.
Given their unique situation, Abby and Brittany made a special agreement when it came to their salary.
“Obviously, right away, we understand that we are going to get one salary because we’re doing the job of one person,” Abby explained to BBC in 2013. “As maybe experience comes in, we’d like to negotiate a bit, considering we have two degrees and are able to offer two different perspectives or teach in two different ways,” she added.
When they first got their teaching jobs, they agreed on a single salary, knowing they were doing the work of one person.
But here’s the twist: despite being conjoined, Abby and Brittany are treated as individuals in the school system and each holds her own degree. The twins, whose parents always encouraged them to think independently, both graduated from Bethel University in 2012 with education degrees. They briefly considered different subjects but realized the extra coursework would be too much.
In high school, they only paid one set of tuition fees but had to pay two sets of registration fees, as reported by the NY Daily News. When traveling, they need two passports but only one ticket since they share one seat.