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Sunday, May 17, 2009 9:11 PM CDT
Retiring from teaching, Hallett plans to keep learning
By DAVE FOPAY, Staff Writer
dfopay@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON — Candi Hallett calls them “Orphan Annies” and “Orphan Andys.”
They’re some of the students she’s seen, at least one each year, in her classroom during her 35 years in teaching. She said they’re the ones who not only need to be taught reading, writing and math, but also might need anything from new shoes to help feeling accepted.
“Sometimes you have to meet the needs of the children first before you can teach them,” Hallett said.
The second-grade teacher at Carl Sandburg Elementary School will retire when the school year ends on May 28. She said she’s always welcomed not only the challenges but the opportunities that teaching and helping children in other ways have brought.
“The most important thing as a teacher is how the children have impacted me,” she said. “I want to acknowledge that the children have taught me a lot of things.”
Hallett is a Charleston native who started her career as an aide in the school district’s deaf education program after graduating from Eastern Illinois University. She spent a year in the hearing-impaired program, then taught kindergarten for 16 years before moving to second grade.
She said it all hit home this year, as one of her students now is the daughter of one she taught her first year in education.
“That’s what happens when you end up in your hometown,” she said. “You have connections.”
Hallett said she likes teaching at the elementary school level because the students are adjusted to the classroom and can begin working independently. At the same time, she said she appreciates things like the flowers and small fossils she has on her desk — gifts her students have given her.
“They have enough skills and are ready to utilize those skills,” she said. “They still like their teacher.”
Hallett has also found that teaching strategies change over the years and sometimes come back to techniques that have been used before. An emphasis in reading now is to work with smaller groups of students, for example, but she said she’s willing to make changes when they’re beneficial.
“It’s something that’s kept me thriving because things are fresh,” she said. “The bottom line is you never really reach the point where you know everything about teaching.”
Hallett’s husband Steve is a building services worker at EIU and won’t retire for a few years yet, but the couple plan to go to Germany this summer and there’s more traveling among her retirement plans. Those also include “more extended motorcycle trips,” along with things like reading, gardening and taking cooking lessons.
“I don’t want to quit learning,” Hallett said. “You see how excited the children get. It’s still very much embedded in me.”
Contact Dave Fopay at dfopay@jg-tc.com or 238-6858.
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EIUChucktown wrote on May 18, 2009 2:00 AM:
Good luck in all you do. "