Brenda Kneeshaw: Retirement ends 35-year teaching career

Hundreds of worn children’s books line the walls of Brenda Kneeshaw’s classroom. Her famous box turtle, Stamford, rests stoically in her bin.

And at the front of the room is Kneeshaw herself, answering questions, doling out instructions and living up to the impeccable reputation she has built teaching school in Colfax for the past 35 years.

“She is just a woman of great strength and compassion,” said Sharon Hall, the other Colfax fourth-grade teacher.

Kneeshaw walks out of the classroom this week after 37 years in education. A teacher to the core, she is still considering plans to teach part-time at another location next year.

In an interview with the Gazette Monday, Kneeshaw said she built her classrooms on the solid foundations of, “Ready, Respect, and Responsible.”

“I always ask students to set a goal,” Kneeshaw said. Students drift in and out as she talks. She hands out orders to them like they are her own children; one student tells her someone spat on her at recess, one student can’t find his library book, one student doesn’t feel good and needs to sit out at P.E.

All this she handles in stride.

“You don’t have to be a friend- but you can be a person,” she said later. Kneeshaw said her take on successful teaching is letting her beloved students see her as an individual.

For example, she has confided in students the time she, as a teenager, drove her mother’s car into the river, she has told them about her bout with breast cancer, she has shared about the time her son dropped his shoes in the outhouse toilet.

Delicately built with a kindly smile, Kneeshaw has a quiet, strong authority to her. When she speaks to the classroom, the students (for the most part) listen.

“My kids will do things for me because they know me,” she said.

Originally from Salem, Ore., Kneeshaw graduated from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma in 1970. She married her husband of 40 years, Tom, in 1970. They moved to Colfax in 1980, where she began teaching in the art program. They have four children.

Kneeshaw taught various subjects from kindergarten through 12th grade for many years, then taught first grade for 11 years. For the past 16 years, she has taught fourth graders alongside Hall. Together, the two have tag-teamed the education of all of Colfax’s fourth graders for 16 years.

“She’s impacted students all the way into their adulthood. She is much more than just one of their teachers to them. She’s still passionate about it,” Hall said.

Hall said Kneeshaw has been her mentor and good friend. Saying goodbye is tough.

“The way she is as a friend is the same way she is as a teacher- unconditionally devoted to you. It’s hard to put in words,” she said.

Kneeshaw slows a bit when asked about her coming retirement, her eyes misting slightly as she talks about leaving the school she loves.

The failure of the school levy and impending cuts to the school budget were what convinced her and her husband she could retire now.

“I don’t feel like I’m old enough to leave here, but I’ve been here long enough,” she said.