The Cupertino Courier

Education

Retiring teacher reflects on 46 years in classroom

By ERIN HUSSEY

For many people, it can take years before they find a career they enjoy. For Janice Hagerbaumer, a fifth-grade teacher at Garden Gate Elementary, it was instantaneous.

"It was about the second week I was teaching," remembers Hagerbaumer. "I thought, 'I really like this.' "

That was 46 years ago, and Hagerbaumer has been teaching ever since.

"I was excited to get up probably 98 percent of the time and go to work in the morning," she says. "I think that's what kept me going, and the interaction with the children."

Hagerbaumer has taught at Garden Gate for the past 30 years, and an additional 15 for the Cupertino Union School District.

Hagerbaumer is retiring at the end of the school year, although she says it's more like "scaling back."

She has already signed-up to become a substitute teacher and promises to continue to organize the Marin Headlands Science Education program, a weeklong field trip she has led for more than 20 years.

"My husband booked a cruise for the first of September because he's afraid I'll come back to teaching," she says. "But I'll be back."

For the first part of her career, Hagerbaumer, like most teachers, taught solo.

But in 1974, due to some staffing issues at Murdock Elementary School, where she was teaching at the time, the principal paired her with a young teacher to team-teach fifth grade.

"She went to the principal and said, 'I can't teach with that hippie,' " says Mariana Alwell, recalling Hagerbaumer's first response.

"I also went to the principal and said, 'I don't think I can do this.' But the principal told me the same thing. That it would work out.

The principal was right. Despite their initial reaction, the two women continued to team-teach and are now best friends.

In 1977, Hagerbaumer and Alwell moved from Murdock to Garden Gate Elementary.

"I definitely think that there will be a void," says Nancy Woods, Garden Gate principal. "She has been apart of the Garden Gate community for so many years. Janice's commitment went far beyond regular teaching hours.

Over the years Hagerbaumer has been responsible for teaching language arts and science, while Alwell focused on social studies and math.

Six years ago, a third teacher joined their teaching team: Stuart Rosenberg, a high-tech businessman looking for a change of pace. His part-time schedule enabled Hagerbaumer to run and become the Cupertino Education Association president, a position she will also vacate this summer.

"She has so much knowledge and experience that she is willing to share," says Cris Lawson, fifth-grade teacher at Garden Gate.

Lawson says Hagerbaumer served as one of her inspirations for becoming a teacher.

Hagerbaumer has seen and experienced a variety of changes in the teaching profession.

"I think we ask kids to do a lot more thinking then we did before. When I first started, you presented the material and they either got it or they didn't, and there was only one right answer. Nowadays if they can explain their thinking, a lot of times there is more than one right answer."

Hagerbaumer also remembers when the majority of mothers stayed home, children didn't have such scheduled, busy lives, most people didn't become teachers because of the summer vacations and computers were talked about only in science-fiction books.

"I really think I've been lucky," Hagerbaumer says. "It doesn't seem like there are that many people out there that have jobs they really like to go to."