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Wednesday, Jun. 11, 2008

Retiring, but she won’t quit: Longtime Los Osos science teacher hangs up lab coat

Los Osos Middle School will bid farewell to Diana Barnhart, who vows to keep teaching for free

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After 39 years of working at a handful of schools throughout California, Diana Barnhart still can’t stop teaching.

The 62-year-old Los Osos Middle School science teacher is set to retire Thursday. But after a couple of short vacations, she’ll likely head back to the classroom.

“I plan to keep teaching,” she said. “But for free.”

She loves science as much as she loves her students’ reactions when they walk in-to her classroom every morning, excited to do a science experiment or look at insects. While growing up, Barnhart recalled her fourth-grade teacher sending her to find grasshoppers to feed the class tarantula. Since then, she has been hooked on science.

A San Luis Obispo native and graduate of San Luis Obispo High School, Barnhart received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology from Cal Poly and her teaching credential from CSU Dominguez Hills. She has taught science courses from middle school through college.

Barnhart was selected as California State Teacher of Year in 2006 and the county and San Luis Coastal Unified School District Teacher of the Year in 2005. She was named Los Osos Middle School Teacher of the Year four times.

She taught in San Diego and at Morro Bay High School before settling in Los Osos in 1983.

And although middle school students are her favorite, teaching at that level has its challenges, Barnhart said.

In San Diego, about 70 percent of her students didn’t speak English. So she learned to teach science in Spanish, a skill she still uses.

“In San Diego, we were dealing with gangs and kids from poor families,” she said.

She remembers her students not having been exposed to different areas of Southern California.

“They lived in San Diego but they had never seen big trees … or creatures in the ocean.”

When she started teaching at Los Osos Middle School, the classrooms didn’t have any science equipment.

But with support from her principals, Barnhart said, the school bought baby food jars, test tubes and Bunsen burners for experiments. And she still spends some of her own money buying equipment.

Now, she said, her students are always excited to do experiments.

“Every day is a new day,” she said. “They never get tired, and sometimes I do.”

Throughout her career, Barnhart has seen teachers come and go and the difficulty of retaining good teachers.

Still, attracting and retaining good teachers in the county may be one of the biggest challenges facing school administrators, she said. That’s partly because younger teachers are not paid as well, she said.

“It’s a hard job,” she said. “One of the things (schools) might want to do is make it easier. People want to retire from one job and go into teaching, and I think they should push that,” she added.

But for those considering careers in teaching, Barnhart said, it’s a commitment that pays off in the end.

“Hang in there. It’s really fun,” she said. “I’ve done this for 39 years, and I still spend every evening preparing lessons.”