GREENFIELD — The sign taped to the wall said it all.
Written in purple- and teal-colored marker, in a youngster’s scrawl, the note proclaimed: “52 years is dedication.”
And that’s certainly what Jim Ellars showed in his decades-long career with Greenfield-Central Schools, his colleagues say. The longtime teacher will begin his retirement as the school year comes to a close this week, marking the end of 52 years at the front of the classroom. Years filled with enthusiasm and passion and patience — and, yes, dedication.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
Now, Ellars will take a well-earned break and enjoy the quiet of retirement with his wife, Georgia. As he packs up his classroom at Maxwell Intermediate School and says his goodbyes this week, he’s looking back on all those years of hard work with a bittersweet fondness, he said.
It’s been a long, strange and wonderful ride, he told his colleagues during a reception this week at Maxwell. He’s still trying to sort out how he feels about retirement — sad that it’s over or excited for the future — but he’s ready, and he’ll cherish all the memories and connections he made along the way.
Ellars estimated he’s taught at least 2,000 students in the five decades he’s been a teacher.
He started his career in 1966 when he was hired by then-superintendent J.B. Stephens to work at Riley Elementary School. His salary in those days was just over $5,000 a year, and he recalls driving around Greenfield with Stephens, touring each of the schools where a position was open, and being told he could have his pick of whichever he wanted.
Certainly a different experience than what new teachers have today, Ellars said.
After three years at Riley, Ellars took a post at Lincoln Park Elementary School, where he stayed for the next nearly 30 years. In 1997, he transferred to Maxwell Intermediate School, where he’s been teaching the fifth grade ever since.
Ellars said that, like many in his profession, he had a teacher years ago who inspired him to pursue education as a career.
He’d hoped to follow in that teacher’s footsteps and teach Latin to high school students; but it didn’t take too long for him to realize that such a position might be hard to come by, he said. So, he decided to channel his passion of history and social studies and chase a job teaching those subject matters instead.
But being a teacher is so much more than pouring over textbooks and preparing for tests, Ellars said he has learned.
Teachers are entrusted with passing knowledge on from one generation to the next, he said; and sometimes a day’s lesson needs to be in kindness, compassion and teamwork rather than just science, English and math.
“There are so many things you can help (students) develop,” he said. “And to me, that’s really the most important thing that we do.”
Ellars said he’s loved teaching fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders the most. At that age, kids can carry on conversations like adults, while still holding the curiosity and love for learning that a child has, he said.
Eleven-year-old Tatum Adams, a former student of Ellars’, said he made learning a lot of fun and often told jokes to keep his classes engaged in lessons.
Tatum showed up at Ellars’ retirement reception, conducted this week in the Maxwell Intermediate School cafeteria, to give her favorite teacher a gift — a mug proclaiming “World’s Best Teacher,” a framed photograph of them together and a drawing of Ellars she’d made — and say goodbye one last time.
The students will certainly be what Ellars will miss the most about getting up every day and coming to school, his wife, Georgia Ellars, said.
The couple’s home is full of knick-knacks, cards and drawings from her husband’s years of teaching — tokens of affection from former students, she said. She knows Jim Ellars will miss developing such connections with young people.
But she’ll be happy to have him home, she said. She’s eager to travel and to spend more time with their four children and six grandchildren.
In between the trips and the book-reading and crossword puzzle-completing that retirement will bring, Jim Ellars plans to substitute teach in Greenfield-Central Schools as a way to ease himself into this new way of life, he said.
“I’m not ready to give it up entirely,” he joked.