Here’s a woman who knows something about commitment. In Nebraska, a teacher is celebrating her 68th year in the classroom.
Kit Voorhees isn’t your typical teacher. For starters, she’s 88 and has been teaching for nearly seven decades. At a time when women were just expected to get a high school diploma, she said her love of learning has kept her going all these years and will continue to inspire her.
“My happy place is the classroom,” Voorhees told KOLN.
For the last 68 years, she’s taught special education, music and art classes, authored several college courses, founded and directed the “Arts Are Basic Program” at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, and now teaches several cultural studies courses as an adjunct professor at Doane University.
Voorhees believes the arts are marvelous windows into learning about anything.
Kit didn’t go to college until she was in her 40s while she was raising her daughters. She got her Bachelor’s degree, then a Master’s degree in musicology.
She retired from teaching at UNL in 2003 but has always found other classrooms to practice her trade.
She said, “I see teaching as a journey, like taking a walk together with the students. I truly learn every single class I have ever taught, I learn from the students.”
Kit’s family said they think she might retire soon. Kit said she wants to die with her boots on; teaching.