North Shore Times (New Zealand)
Resilience needed, retiring teacher says
If you’re not having fun, the kids aren’t having fun.
That’s been one of the golden rules for teacher Erika Bon, who is putting down her duster and turning off the classroom lights after half a century in the profession.
The 67-year-old has retired from her job as associate principal at St Joseph’s Catholic School in Takapuna after nearly 30 years at the school.
Bon is known for her hands-on teaching approach, with her students turning her classroom into a medieval castle that held weaponry battles, a gold-panning site where gold nuggets were found hidden around the room, a hydroponics lab and a puppet theatre, among other things.
‘‘I’m very much a teacher that tries to make learning fun and involves the kids as much as possible,’’ Bon said. ’’I was never going to be a teacher where kids sat in rows and faced the front and copied off the board.
‘‘I used to think, ‘How can I get this idea across to the children?’ and the only way is by action - if you’re doing problem-solving, give them an origami task.’’
Retirement brings to an end to Bon’s 47-year career shaping young minds from Auckland to Nelson, and over the ditch in Sydney and Melbourne.
For Bon, teaching hasn’t been a job but a vocation.
A ‘‘firm, but fair’’ teacher, she has spent a large amount of effort training her students to be problem-solvers rather than problem-finders.
She worries today’s kids have lost the resilience of the generations before them.
‘‘The world is so competitive now, we try to make them grow up too quickly,’’ she said. ’’There are going to be disappointments in their life, and difficulties, but none of them are life-threatening.
‘‘Get them out to play. Get them off social media.’’
For Bon, there has never been a student too difficult, and she had never found a reason to give up on a child.
‘‘There’s always something, even if there’s a tiny little step, it’s still a step for children.’’
And it’s the children, she says, that she will miss the most. Their stories, their smiles, their successes. She said she loved her work, but was looking forward to the next chapter, cultivating a life outside the classroom.
Retirement will be yoga at midday, books that don’t centre on new learning methodologies and going fishing.