by Cori Hilsgen
news@thenewsleaders.com
Colleen Christenson recently retired from teaching with the Sauk Rapids-Rice School District after 44 years.
Christenson began teaching in Sauk Rapids in 1971. She has taught in the Pleasant View, Hillside and Mississippi Heights buildings, teaching grades four and five during the school year and all grades during summer school.
Christenson taught all subjects, including language arts, math, science, social, health, art, music and physical education. Most recently, she taught math to all fifth-grade students at the Mississippi Heights Elementary School.
“I love teaching math,” Christenson said.
She said some of her favorite teaching moments in her career were the “aha” moments when students realized they were learning. Christenson also enjoys the natural reaction of students expressing appreciation. She gave an example of how students have said to her throughout the years: “Last year I didn’t like math, but this year I do.” Or: “Last year I wasn’t good at math, but this year I am.”
“The rewarding part of teaching is when students experience the excitement of learning and understand that they get it,” she said.
As she retires, Christenson said she doesn’t feel she needs to offer beginning teachers any advice because those whom she has worked with in the Sauk Rapids-Rice school system are very capable and passionate about teaching.
She herself was also passionate about teaching and believes if you love what you do, it won’t seem like work.
Christenson said teaching styles have evolved to more of a team approach than when she first began.
“When I began my education career, teachers taught their classes by themselves without having a planned time to work together,” Christenson said. “Over time, teaching has changed to a collaborative model wherein teachers work together to help students learn.
She said Sauk Rapids-Rice is an excellent TEAM (Together Everyone Achieves More) school system and that it’s been a privilege to work in the district for 44 years. She has also appreciated the community pride, which she said is very evident.
“Students benefit from TEAM,” she said.
Something Christenson said has been hard during her career is knowing and watching when students experience great difficulties.
“It is heart-wrenching for me to see students struggle with homelessness or with difficult situations in their homes,” she said. “The school does its best in offering personnel and programs to help.”
Christenson grew up in Crosby, N.D. and attended Concordia College in Moorhead.
She said she loved going to school and knew from early on that she wanted to be a teacher.
She gave examples of how her family strongly valued education.
When her grandmother was 5, she walked by herself from her family farm across the prairies of North Dakota to a one-room schoolhouse. Her grandmother also voted for the first time in the 1920 elections, which was the year women were granted the right to vote, and she continued to vote in every election after that.
When Christenson would ask her father what a new word meant, he would help her look it up in a dictionary that sat on a coffee table in their family living room.
“My mother wanted to be sure that not only did her son go to college, but also that her three daughters went to college,” Christenson said.
In retirement, Christenson plans to spend more time with her family and friends. Her family includes her mother, three siblings, two nieces and a niece’s cat.
Her mother still lives in Crosby; her sister, Betty, teaches elementary school in Washington state; her sister, Cheryl, works in computer software; her brother, Barry, works in business; and his wife, Kay, works in an elementary school.
Her niece, Anne, is doing graduate work in nursing; her niece, Sophie, will begin seventh grade in the fall; and Sophie’s cat named Lonesome Louie enjoys being held, but Christenson says he is fearless in defending his yard against a fox that wanders through it.
She also looks forward to exploring new things, doing more hiking, resuming ballroom dance lessons and more. She said she tried snorkeling for the first time this year.
Christenson hopes to stay involved with young people, possibly through teaching piano lessons and volunteering.
Colleen Christenson is retiring from the Sauk Rapids-Rice School District, a district in which she said it has been a privilege to work in for 44 years. She is shown standing by an education poster that says TEAM, which means Together Everyone Achieves More. Christenson says students benefit from TEAM and Sauk Rapids is an excellent TEAM school system.
