After four decades of teaching at Opihi College, school’s out for Bernie Rose.
Mrs Rose will retire at the end of this term after a lifetime of teaching at the Temuka high school, beginning as a reliever and ending as assistant principal.
It was her first teaching job after graduating from Teacher’s College and came about by chance, when a friend landed her the position 44 years ago.
‘‘She said ‘have you got a job yet?’ I said ‘no’ and she told me, ‘well you have now’.’’
That job — relieving at what is now Opihi College in Temuka — quickly became permanent.
Born in Timaru, Mrs Rose — then Griffin — studied at Mercy College which would later become Roncalli College.
She was the oldest of eight children and put herself through Teacher’s College by working as a rousie in shearing sheds.
As the home economics teacher — now dubbed food technology — in her early years she taught only girls how to cook, as boys were not allowed to learn.
She said when boys eventually started learning too, they were not allowed to study in the same class — despite being integrated in all of the main classes.
When Mrs Rose started — as Miss Griffin — there had been a residential foster home on the outskirts of town.
‘‘They gave me the run around,’’ she said.
But they were no different from today’s children, ‘‘just different trauma’’.
But some of those traumas still remained the same.
With many students having plentiful access to technology after school hours, bullying had taken a new form.
It now happened more at home, but the aftermath filtered into the school.
As a cooking teacher she had taught students who had gone on to become chefs.
‘‘It is the best teaching subject in the world.’’
She said the gratification of creating and enjoying a meal meant there were not too many people who did not enjoy the class.
While she loved being in the classroom, she also had really enjoyed being the assistant principal, which enabled her to help students on a larger scale, including sorting out tricky situations and problems at home.
While moving over four decades worth of memories and work out of her office she had found notes and letters from students in her filing cabinet, which she would treasure.
She said with all of the things being moved into her house, she had been trying to organise things there, too.
She had come across a wooden box which had been given to her grandmother 100 years ago when she had graduated from teaching school.
It had been in her ownership after her relative had decided — as she was the only teacher — she must have it.
She had brought the wooden box to school to put those special cards from students in, but her workmates had serendipitously bought an almost-identically sized wooden box to give her as a farewell present.
However, that wooden box would not fit any notes in it, as it contained two engraved wine glasses, and she was terrified she would smash them.
