After 50 Years, Teacher’s Best Lesson Is Enthusiasm : Education: Esther Kobusch, first-grade teacher at Jefferson Elementary, can’t wait to begin classes, marking a half century on the job.
OK, can we forget about budget cuts, crowded classrooms, the debate over school quality for at least a day?
The educational world can’t be all bad if teacher Esther Kobusch is back in the classroom today for her 50th year, fired up once more to mold first-graders into lifelong learners.
Already, Kobusch has been humming the “Tuesday, Tuesday, I like Tuesday, Tuesday is the third day of the week” ditty that goes along with one of the big picture books she’s arranged around the reading circle.
She’s placed a plethora of books around Room 8 at Jefferson Elementary in North Park. Science, sports, fairy tales--you name it, Kobusch has got it--the bulk of the titles garnered from garage sales she searches out by bicycle. Her new group of Munchkins can’t help but find a book they like, something that brings a big smile to Kobusch as she contemplates her arrangements.
“Got to keep busy, got to keep busy,” the dean of San Diego city schoolteachers reminded herself late last week as she added final touches to the room. “The key is ‘Be Prepared’ .”
Conscious of the half-century mark she attains in the classroom this fall, the vivacious, bubbly Kobusch added, “I don’t want to be known as the oldest teacher. I don’t want to be known as someone who’s taught for 50 years.
“I want to be known for being a great teacher, for having 50 productive years helping kids.”
By any measure, Kobusch has earned that reputation.
“I thought I’ve been teaching a long time,” Jefferson teacher Nancy Rodrique, a veteran of almost two decades, said. “And Esther has been teaching before I was even born!
“But she has more energy than all the rest of us combined! She’s just interested in everything and anything!”
The legions of former students who greet her at the market, or stop by her class, number in the hundreds--one has telephoned regularly for 40 years--and they include the family that moved to Las Vegas years ago, but who still says hello on each visit back to California.
San Diego-born and bred, Kobusch lives in the modest City Heights home where she was born, some 3 miles from work. She attended Hamilton Elementary, Wilson Junior High and Hoover High School, class of 1938.
Kobusch also barnstormed around the country as a first baseman and center fielder for a San Diego women’s softball team.
“We were the team from Cramer’s Buttercream Bread,” a local baker of the time, she said with a laugh, humming the company jingle as if she were still slinging the ball around the diamond.
Kobusch graduated from then-San Diego State College in 1942 and briefly thought about a career as a gym teacher before settling instead for first grade. She moved a bit north and taught for two years in Solana (then known as Solano) Beach, but returned in 1944 to San Diego city schools. Kobusch has never left.
Her entire city schools career has been in three schools: Washington, Garfield, Jefferson----presidents all. How has she done it, when national statistics show that at least half of all teachers today quit within their first five years?
“I don’t know,” Kobusch said. “It’s just my personality. I have always been happy to come to work. I’ve never burned out. I’ve always felt challenged.
“Of course it’s not all fun and games, but it’s been a very pleasant job to have.”
The classroom is never far from her mind, even during the off months. This summer, Kobusch picked up stacks of books, found sea shells, butterfly exhibits, old records, games, puzzles and other paraphernalia--all now ready for first-grade exploration.
For Kobusch, hands-on learning has been in vogue long before school administrators rediscovered that many children learn through touch, called “manipulatives” in today’s education jargon.
“I don’t care what the (learning) system is,” Kobusch said. “Good teachers supplement the basics with things out of their experiences.”
Jefferson’s principal, Trudy Campbell, credits Kobusch with the willingness to change, an ability she says is not always seen in veteran teachers, particularly at a school that has changed over the years from a predominantly white enrollment to nonwhite.
Two years ago, when the school district introduced a language program, Kobusch had some rough moments with the new way to teach writing--where students can literally scribble gibberish at first as long as they can explain it to the teacher.
“Trudy got a (resource teacher) to come out and help show me how to do it,” Kobusch said. “I said, ‘By golly, I’ll try it!’ and you know what? The results have been good. The children now do letters, they write journals.”
Kobusch defends education against those who say that America’s public school system has fallen onto hard times.
“I don’t believe everything has gone to pot. Sure, things could be better. I can’t tell you how to improve everything. But at least we’re flexible. We’ll try so many new things.”
In the same vein, she refuses to join the critics’ bandwagon that takes parents to task for being the cause of a decline.
“Parents still do care about their kids. But so many work now. They get home at night just in time to cook a meal, bathe their child and give a good-night kiss. They have to take time off from work now to come to conferences. But you know what? My experiences with parents are still almost always positive.”
She treasures notes like the one from a parent to the principal last year who praised Kobusch for helping “change her boy, to make him better at home. If she did half as much with the other children, then she really had done a job!”
What about retirement? “No, no, no, never, please don’t even use that word!” Kobusch protested. Still in good health in her early 70s--she bicycles, jogs and walks and this summer repainted her kitchen--Kobusch said she has no desire to do anything else.
“At this point, I’ve got no thoughts at all about that. None of my principals have given the hint either, like ‘Haven’t you given some thought about retirement?’
“I’ve never, ever wanted to quit. I’ve never, ever had any children I didn’t like. Oh, I’ve gotten perturbed at a few now and then, but truly, I’ve loved them all.”
