Longtime kindergarten teacher retires from Glen Ridge schools

GLEN RIDGE, NJ — Pamela Urban, a kindergarten teacher at Central School, is retiring today, June 30. An educator in the school district for 17 years, she spent 15 years at Linden Avenue School and the last two at Central. She began her teaching career at age 28 at an independent school in Teaneck, teaching kindergarten.

“It went by fast,” she said of her years as an educator.

Urban attended Lycoming College in Pennsylvania for a Bachelor of Arts in commercial design and received her teaching certificate in elementary education from William Paterson University. After college, Urban worked for Simon & Schuster in its human resources and book manufacturing scheduling departments in Old Tappan and Englewood Cliffs.

She grew up in Westwood in Bergen County, and an early influence for her was her Aunt Carolyn, a nurse.

“She had so much passion for her patients in a nursing home,” Urban said. “The way she talked about them, I thought I’d love to have a career where I’d have that passion. But I can’t stand the sight of blood, so nursing wasn’t for me.”

Other influences were the teachers of her children while she was a stay-at-home mom.

She has a brother who also went into teaching but now works for the Alaska state government. 

“He’s 13 years older than me,” she said. “I was 12 when I first went out there. Juneau is remote but nice in the summer.”

Urban said she has returned often to Alaska with her husband and two children. 

She recalled that when she taught at the independent school, her students were given one standardized test each year. The kindergartners in Glen Ridge, she said, are tested four times a year.

“The private school was small and familylike,” she said, adding that she crafted her teaching style there. “I’m a teacher who sings all the time. I usually start my lessons with songs. I incorporate a lot of music and arts into my lessons.”

Since she began teaching, the use of technology in the classroom has increased, Urban said.

“I have a great Promethean smartboard connected to the internet and an online curriculum,” she said. “Push a button, and the lessons are on the board as a component of enrichment.”

Virtual teaching was difficult, she said, but the teachers stuck together, mitigating the hardship.

And now, she feels the time has come for her to retire.

“I don’t say this is the end, but the start of another chapter,” she said. “I’d like to volunteer in a soup kitchen and for the Neighbor Brigade in West Caldwell, and also volunteer at the First Presbyterian Church in Caldwell. They have a lot of great programs for kids, and I’d like to be part of that.”

Urban and her husband, Stephen, are currently planning a trip to the Dolomites in northern Italy, then to Venice and also Lake Como. She said it will be the first time they have had the opportunity to travel in September.

Asked to reveal something about herself that perhaps none of her Glen Ridge colleagues know, Urban said her father-in-law was the inventor of Dove soap.

“He was the lead chemical engineer on the project,” she said. “He kept saying he invented it but didn’t get all the credit. His name was Warren Urban, and he lived to 93. He was an amazing chef until the day he died. That was the chemist in him.”

  Central School in Glen Ridge, FEATURED, Glen Ridge School District, Linden Avenue Elementary School