Retired teacher keeps her hand in

By MAUREEN MCGUINNESS- | Comments: 0 | Leave a comment

Although she is retired, Sister Robertine Flaherty, CSJ, still keeps her hand in the classroom. And her fingers.

The former English and Latin teacher spends part of her days making crafts that are used in classrooms around the Albany Diocese.

"Although I have retired from the classroom, by crafting for teachers I feel connected to the profession which I loved and still love," Sister Robertine said.

Among her crafts are finger puppet bunny rabbits, clowns and numbers. Early childhood education and primary teachers use them to teach colors, numbers, consecutive counting, skip counting and addition.

Learning to speak

Sister Robertine's manipulatives have helped many children learn, but they had a surprising impact on one child. A woman purchased a set of the bunny rabbit finger puppets for her grandchildren.

One child did not speak and was working with a therapist to gain language skills. The therapist began using the finger puppets and the child said, "Hop, hop, hop."

"I'm most excited by that," Sister Robertine said. "It was one of the most exciting things for me."

Life in classroom

Being in the classroom was also exciting for Sister Robertine. She entered the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1935 and was assigned to teach sixth grade at St. Patrick's School in Troy. Over the next 50 years, she taught at schools in both the Albany and Syracuse dioceses, including: St. Joseph's in Troy, St. Mary's in Amsterdam, St. Joseph's in Schenectady, St. Mary's in Hoosick Falls and Keveny Academy in Cohoes.

"I just knew I wanted to be a teacher," she said. "My family were nurses, and I knew I didn't want to do that. I liked kids."

She enjoyed many aspects of teaching, such as decorating the classroom, making up games for the students and supervising extracurricular activities.

She is a firm believer that children can experience success in many ways -- from succeeding in the classroom to participating in a school play. "Slow student, fast student -- they were all the same to me," she said. "I could bring them out in extracurricular activities."

Learning herself

Summer breaks were spent by Sister Robertine in the library at The College of Saint Rose in Albany, searching for new ideas and new ways to present information to her students.

Teachers, she said, can't expect that all students will work in the same way. "You have to accept them all where they are at," she said, "and then challenge them to do their best."

Sister Robertine worked in both elementary schools and high schools. At the high school level, she preferred to teach in smaller schools like Keveny. "Keveny was small," she said. "In one class, I had 16. I liked the small school."

In smaller schools, she was able to get to know each of her students where "I was closer to them and their parents. In the big school, you didn't know them."

New life

While she enjoyed her time in the classroom, after 50 years she decided it was time to retire. That was in 1986 when there was a surplus of teachers.

"It was time to move on and open the door for younger teachers -- some that were my own students," she said.

But she couldn't sit still during retirement and decided to turn her attention to crafting. Her first project was making colorful covers for planning books. "As a teacher, I like colorful things in the classroom," she said. "The covers keep the books clean and prevented dog ears."

She continues to make these covers, the manipulatives, as well as inexpensive prizes for teachers to give their students. She also makes non-school-related crafts. She has a room at St. Joseph's Provincial House dedicated to crafting where all of her supplies are neatly organized on shelves. She works on her crafts from after breakfast until 11 each morning, then has the rest of the day free to enjoy her retirement.

(To purchase Sister Robertine's crafts, call 785-3510.)

(09-02-99) [[In-content Ad]]