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Conjoined twins opened up on what their life was like after becoming teachers

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Published 20:27 3 Nov 2023 GMT

Conjoined twins opened up on what their life was like after becoming teachers

Abby and Brittany Hensel explained how they approach their job as teachers in an elementary school.

Gerrard Kaonga

Gerrard Kaonga

Conjoined twins Abby and Brittany Hensel detailed how they approach their job as elementary school teachers.

The 32-year-olds have been working as teachers following their graduation from university for the last ten years.

And the pair have been candid in the past about how they work to do the role together.

Abby and Brittany are conjoined twins, to give it the proper medical name, dicephalic parapagus twins, which gives them the appearance of having two heads and one body.

It's a very rare condition and only a few people with it survive until adulthood, and it is considered better not to try and separate the twins.

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Each woman has her own heart, stomach, spine and lungs, and they each control one leg and one arm each of the conjoined body.

The twin sisters can eat, write and complete other tasks separately, though other tasks which require the use of multiple limbs at the same time requires some very precise coordination between the pair.

Working together, the sisters can drive a car, play the piano, ride a bike and participate in sports, and they also work together in their jobs as teachers.

Each of them has their own driver's license and had to pass their test separately, as the state of Minnesota requires both of them to hold their own license.

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The proper medical name of Brittany and Abby’s union is dicephalic parapagus twins.
YouTube/OMG Stories

The sisters have appeared on TV several times, first in 1996 on The Oprah Winfrey Show and then on documentaries, Joined for Life and Joined at Birth.

Abby and Brittany also featured on UK TV show Extraordinary People, and starred in their own TLC reality show Abby & Brittany, which aired in 2012 and followed the sisters as they graduated from university and started working as teachers.

While they once starred in reality TV, these days the sisters live a relatively low-key life as elementary school teachers.

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Together, they teach fourth and fifth grade kids with a focus on math in a role they've held since 2013.

Each woman has her own heart, stomach, spine and lungs, and they each control one leg and one arm.
YouTube/OMG Stories

Although they earned separate degrees and each hold a teaching license, when they secured the job as teachers Abby and Brittany were only paid one salary split between them, which they understood as they were 'doing the job of one person'.

Abby told the BBC in 2013: "As maybe experience comes in we'd like to negotiate a little bit, considering we have two degrees and because we are able to give two different perspectives or teach in two different ways."

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"One can be teaching and one can be monitoring and answering questions," Brittany said. "So in that sense we can do more than one person."

They may be conjoined, but each sister has her own 'different style', though it's something which requires compromise and they see themselves as 'totally different people'.

Featured Image Credit: YouTube/OMG Stories

Topics: Health, US News, Life

Gerrard Kaonga
Gerrard Kaonga

Gerrard is a Journalist at UNILAD and has dived headfirst into covering everything from breaking global stories to trending entertainment news. He has a bachelors in English Literature from Brunel University and has written across a number of different national and international publications. Most notably the Financial Times, Daily Express, Evening Standard and Newsweek.

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