Terry Serviss has a been a highschool teacher at Mackenzie Community School in Deep River for the past 26-years. He says he’s taught entire families and is now working with the kids of parents he used to teach.
Serviss says teaching runs in the family as his dad taught at General Panet on base in the 1960’s. He adds his brother recently retired after teaching for 30-years at Valour and Panet schools in Petawawa.
His favourite part of a career in education is the connections he’s made in the community.
Serviss says living in Westmeath and travelling to Deep River all these years he’s racked up over 1.2-million kilometers on three Toyota’s with with his current vehicle at over 300,000 km.
The Deep River highschool teacher told myFM he was almost ready to move out to Saskatchewan to be in the RCMP, but decided to go into teaching instead.
Serviss is a hockey coach and coached other sports at Mackenzie Community School before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Working with many University bound students, Serviss says they are adapting well with online learning, but he adds those who don’t cope well with stress, mental health and anxiety are really struggling.
In 2001, Serviss wrote a class called “Issues in Human Rights” and is the only one in Ontario to teach the course. When he retires at the end of the year he says the course will never be taught again at the school. Serviss says things are changing and as the only senior science teacher at the school, once he goes those courses will be gone and the students will have to learn online. He says these online courses do not have the same passion behind them.
Serviss says if teaching is something you think you want to do it’s a great time to get involved. He adds there’s going to be tons of opportunities in the coming years with retirements of older staff and due to how stressful the pandemic has been for so many people. He hopes the younger generation will help rejuvenate some of the schools.
Listen to the full interview with Terry Serviss here:
