Diana Bendin
GLEN RIDGE, NJ — With a total of 25 years in the Glen Ridge School District, kindergarten teacher Diana Bendin is retiring after spending the last 22 years at Forest Avenue School. Bendin taught previously at Linden Avenue School and the United Nations International School. She received her teaching certification at Ithaca College and her master’s at New Jersey City University.
A Glen Ridge resident, she began to prepare for retirement as she approached her 25th year of service.
“You have to wean yourself into it,” she said of retirement.
Teaching has changed over the years, she said, because the demands placed on students and teachers by the school curriculum have increased. Class sizes have also grown, and there is more technology. In past years, she said a teacher was happy to have a simple computer and printer in the classroom.
Another change from the past has been the increasing importance of school funding coming directly from parent fundraisers.
“Now, with money tight, the Forest Avenue Home and School Association has stepped forward,” she said. “Not all schools have that.”
Bendin said she thought about being a teacher in the third grade.
“I always knew I wanted to be one,” she said. “It’s like acting. If you have a bad day, there’s another day.”
At the United Nations International School, she taught physical education and health. She later became a general-education teacher. But she finds that having taught physical education a helpful tool with kindergarteners, teaching the children lessons through dance and song.
“I like to dance and sing, move and write,” she said. “That’s what I like to incorporate in teaching.”
Overall, she said her students are more advanced at their age than children once were. She credits this to pre-school education.
“It’s amazing what these little ones can do,” she said. “Kids are in school a lot earlier.”
She did not come from a family of educators who may have influenced her, although she does have a sister who teaches special education. But according to Bendin, she has influenced others.
“I’ve been a mentor to a lot of people, a lot of student teachers,” she said. “I’m proud to say that most of them get a job.”
To be a mentor is exacting work, Bendin said, because you are trying to guide someone who is asking themselves, “Do I really want to do this?” She would tell her student teachers that to be a professional teacher, you must be flexible, creative and understanding.
“Your day can change in a minute,” she said. “Something may not work. Sometimes you have to recognize that children are not learning something the way you’re teaching it.”
Teaching at the lower grade levels, Bendin said a teacher has the opportunity to make an adjustment during the day because the students remain with them and are not moving from class to class.
One thing she found memorable while teaching was her whale project for
students. Every student would make a three-dimensional whale from paper and each whale would be of a different type. Poetry and reports on their whale was
part of the child’s experience. And all the whales were finally hung in a classroom display. Bendin said her students kept these whales for years, unable to part with them, saying they could not discard them because of their importance.
“Special project mean a lot,” she said. “That’s what kids remember.”
Bendin said that in July or August she and her husband will be moving to Delaware where they are having a house built.
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