Bay Port math teacher calls it a career after 38 years of teaching

Struggles, successes
Though looking back on his teaching career and seeing many positives, Van Erem admits it came with challenges too.

“In 2019 I almost gave up the career,” he said. “It was so hard. There were major changes that were made in how we do things, and I didn’t know if I could make it.”

Van Erem said he looked to his faith and spent each day being thankful for his job, and then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

“They sent us home and told us to teach any way we could,” he said, “and I found my footing again.”

Van Erem said the next couple years were difficult, but he felt the need to continue teaching math, at least for a few more years.

“I said at the end of 2021, ‘I’m gonna go back for one more,’” he said. “And my retirement – people were kind of baffled by it all, but I said the next year is gonna be harder and it was. The 2021-22 school year was the hardest of the three.”

Van Erem said much of this year had to do with getting things back on track – with academics and social interaction.

“We had to really work hard this year to help people understand ‘how do you work in the community again? How do you make this happen again?’” he said. “And so it was delightful to see the growth in the kids, not just in their math skills, but in their social skills. I’m not saying it’s all perfect, but it’s a whole lot better than it was when we started the year.”

Calling it a career at the end of the 2021-22 school year, Van Erem said it was time he passed the baton.

“I can comfortably say I can hand it off to somebody (else),” he said. “I will miss this job a lot, but I feel like I gave you kids who are ready to work with you, and you can take it from here. So that was why I waited til this year to retire.”

Retirement
Van Erem said so far, retirement doesn’t look much different than his life the past 20 years.

“My wife Pam and I both use our summertime as our ministry time,” he said. “We’ve been working at camps since we were 16 years old. So, that’s more than 40 years now. We’ve been working at camps all summer long, so we don’t normally stay in the Green Bay area. We get on the road and wherever God leads us, we go. So this summer kind of feels like every summer so far.”

Van Erem said come fall, when everybody goes back to school, “we’re gonna hook up our camper and we’re gonna disappear for a little while.”

“We are going to visit our kids, and instead of staying a day or two, we’re gonna stay a week or two,” he said.

Van Erem said he and his wife Pam are about to celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary.

The pair have three daughters and four granddaughters.

Van Erem said he’s also looking forward to dabbling in a few projects he hasn’t had time to do.

“It used to be that I could teach and do something,” he said. “However, the last three years have been so hard as a teacher during this COVID period that I would teach and that’s all I could get accomplished in the day. There just wasn’t enough time, energy or ability to do more. And so now I can start doing some of those things.”

Advice
As far as advice for future generations of teachers, Van Erem said to set high standards.

“For yourself and for the students,” he said. “It’s really easy to lower the standards, and that feels okay, but if you keep the standards high, they will achieve high, too. There were years where nobody failed my classes, not because I lowered the standards, but they rose up to it.”

Van Erem said love of the job is also important.

“Love your job and the people around you,” he said. “I had the pleasure of being on some wonderful teams, and we couldn’t have done what we did without everybody on the team.”