A half-century of teaching

Jan Kendall retired from full-time teaching in 2005, but being a teacher isn’t just a job for Kendall, it’s a part of her being and not something she could just stop doing. Since her retirement she’s been working as a substitute teacher in the Libby public school system and this year marks her 50th in the classroom.

“I retired once, but I just couldn’t stop,” Kendall said. “Being a teacher is in my blood. I always wanted to be a teacher, there was never any question about what I was going to do.”

Kendall sat behind the desk in Mr. Moe’s classroom at Libby Elementary School, recalling her years at the head of the classroom. 

“I’m teaching kids right now whose parents I taught years ago,” she said. “There are teachers here and at the high school who I taught when they were kids.”

Kendall began her career in Libby at the McGrade School in 1969, teaching there until the school was closed in 2003.

“McGrade was a community,” she said. “Everyone there was a family. It was wonderful. The parents, the staff and the faculty were like a huge family. I loved it there.”

In her 50 years Kendall has seen a number of changes in the schools and the curriculum. She said her goal as an educator was to make learning fun for the kids, to be creative enough in the classroom to spark a desire in the kids to learn. 

“Learning should be fun and enjoyable,” she said. “I try to make it fun for the kids and for myself, and I think it’s been successful.”

One of Kendall’s creative ideas was a reading tub she used in her classroom for years. She took an old bathtub and carpeted it to make it comfortable. She brought it into the classroom and allowed her students to lie down in the tub, comfortable on the carpeted surface, to read their books. 

“Reading is better when you can be comfortable,” she said. “The environment is one key to successful learning.”

Another one of Kendall’s creative programs started while she was teaching at McGrade, the reading camp-out.

After class ended on Friday, the kids would go home, spend time with their families, have dinner and do whatever else they needed to do, then return at 7 p.m. that evening with sleeping bags, pillows and books. 

Kendall arranged learning games and art activities focused around books they were reading, as well as individual reading time. Mothers would come for the night to be chaperones and help keep the games and learning going, for as long as the kids could stay awake. The camp-outs ended with volunteer dads coming in to cook a pancake breakfast Saturday morning.

Kendall extended the camp-out idea to the summer months with her Wednesday summer in the park program.

Every Wednesday, during July and August, Kendall would gather in the park with whatever students showed up and work on math, reading and other educational activities. The program, she said, usually had between 15 and 18 students in attendance on any given day, and ran for the last 12 to 15 years of her tenure at McGrade.

With 50 years under her belt and the flexibility to work on her own schedule as a substitute, Kendall doesn’t seem at all interested in slowing down.

“Obviously, I’m still doing what I love,” Kendall said. “Being in the classroom is a way to positively influence kids.”

Kendall’s dedication and the respect she engenders is obvious in the way the students react to her in the classroom, they listen to her, they do as she instructs and they do it without complaint. It isn’t just the students who notice, either, teachers request her as the substitute when they have to miss class and the school’s administration respects her work and experience.

“Jan has been our go-to substitute for a long time,” said Libby Elementary School principal Ron Goodman. It’s always nice to have an experienced teacher subbing for us.”