Jan McKenzie’s career has taken her from spirit duplicators and chalkboards to tablets and interactive whiteboards, and she wouldn’t have swapped a minute of it.
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Mrs McKenzie retired on Tuesday after a teaching career that not only spanned 38 years, but aside from a solitary term, was spent at Wagga Public School.
After graduating from the Riverina College of Advanced Education, Mrs McKenzie began her teaching career in 1979 with a single term at what was then Tolland Public School.
She received a letter during the school holidays, telling her to start work at Wagga Public the following term.
She walked in on her first day to find her new principal was Allan Kolsky, a teacher who had taught her at Temora, and who was now telling her she would be a year 5 teacher.
“No preparation. Bang, that was it: first class,” Mrs McKenzie said.
“I hit the ground running. But it went well.
“And I’m still in touch with some of those pupils, and some of their parents.”
Mrs McKenzie said that as the years passed, she often had people ask her whether she felt “stale” and in need of a change of school.
“But I didn’t. I love this school,” she said. “I love history and one of the charms of this school is its history.”
Mrs McKenzie has seen the face of the school change.
Original buildings, including an industrial arts building and an old weather shed, were demolished to make way for newer facilities over the years.
“When I started we had spirit duplicators, jelly pads and Gestetners,” Mrs McKenzie said.
“There were no mobile phones and not really even credit cards.
“When we went on an excursion, we paid for everything with a cheque we’d had drawn up before we left.”
One of the results of having been at the same school for 38 years is that Mrs McKenzie is now teaching the children of her past pupils.
“Some are just the spitting image of their parent and some are completely different,” she said.
Now that she’s retired, Mrs McKenzie will be spending more time with her husband Graham, daughter Karina and son Josh, enjoying craft and art and travelling.