After 35 years of saying “Hola!” to students every morning, Spanish teacher Mrs. Staci Gawne is now saying “Adiós!,” announcing her retirement at the end of the school year.
Gawne taught Spanish 3 Honors and Spanish 3 CP for all 35 years of teaching, as well as the AP Spanish Language & Culture course many times.
“I enjoy the AP class because you’re speaking in the language all the time, and there’s so much more creativity,” she said. “You’re not teaching specifically grammar points. You can just enjoy the language and enjoy the students.”
Gawne recalls her first years of teaching, long before smartphones or Schoology.
“When the computers first came about, it was just word processing, and then the internet came about, and that changed everything,” Gawne said. “I can still remember learning how to use a mouse. We had an in-service day on learning how to use a mouse. If I wanted to show a picture and we describe the picture in Spanish, I would have to look for a picture in a magazine, mount it onto a construction paper or card stock, and hold it up for the class. So time-consuming.”
She also advised the yearbook for 15 years at Haven without the luxury of a computer. If anyone happens to stumble on a 1993 yearbook, the pages were all black and white, and a student made the cover by hand.
“I really, really enjoyed that. I am proud of those yearbooks, probably bad as they look compared to what we do now. But at the time, they were pretty good,” Gawne said.
Additionally, Gawne advised the Games Club, a club where about ten students gathered around a table in her classroom to play board games during fifth block.
“And I didn’t know any of the students. They just approached me and said, ‘You don’t have any club or activity. Would you sponsor ours?’ And I said, ‘Sure.’ I didn’t know any of the kids, but we had a good time,” she said.
Gawne sees how she has changed as a teacher over the years. She believed herself to be very strict when she first started, and eased herself into being much kinder.
“I think in my classroom I make all the students very comfortable, and I try to do that. I try to build community within the classroom, and I think I’ve changed as a teacher, because I used to be really strict, and I found that that wasn’t working for me,” Gawne said.
“I changed it so that I would just like, kill them with kindness, almost. It worked for me. I feel like most students get along with me, and I get along with almost everybody.”
Gawne especially enjoyed the AP Spanish Language & Culture class in the spring semester of 2024.
“I tried to make an opener every day for that class. It was always about a ten-minute fun, free speaking activity. We did other activities, but as long as we were speaking all the time, I felt like that’s all we needed to do at that level. Even the presentations I thought were interesting,” she said.
Senior Brooke Forbes took the AP course with Gawne and recalls her kindness.
“She’s just a really good teacher in general, and she’s really patient,” Forbes said. “When you’re confused about something, she’s very helpful with really helping to understand what you’re talking about, because sometimes it gets confusing. Especially in the AP class. She really helped us a lot with the AP exam, and prepared us really well for it.”
Senior Emilio Celebre also participated in the AP course and Spanish 3 Honors. Celebre is grateful to have had Gawne as a teacher.
“[It’s] pretty sad,” Celebre said. “She’s been here for such a long time, taught so many students, since she’s just such a big part of the Spanish department and Spanish program. So, I was upset to hear that she was retiring and that more future students wouldn’t have the opportunity to take her class.”
Gawne believes that high school is a fun part of a person’s life. She is grateful for the opportunity to be part of that fun for so many teenagers’ lives.
“I’m going to miss the students. I’m going to miss the interaction all the time. I’m absolutely going to miss my colleagues as well. I feel nervous about the whole school or everything continuing without me here. It actually makes me a little bit anxious, like this is going to keep going on and I won’t be here anymore,” Gawne said.
