Devoting almost half a century to his students: Teacher Chris Chapman will be missed by community

He’s the ‘local legend’ schoolteacher who has spent 40 years inspiring classes with dramatisations and hands-on learning, now Chris Chapman hangs up the marking pen.

St Lutheran College teacher Chris Chapman is the school's longest serving teacher and will retire this year. Picture, John Gass

Much loved schoolteacher Chris Chapman will be setting down his pen and paper and picking up his gardening gloves to begin his well-earned retirement this week.

During his 43-year career, 39 of those spent at St Peters Lutheran College, Indooroopilly, Mr Chapman said he had seen the education system evolve from chalkboards to Macbook Pros.

St Peters head of college Tim Kotzur said Mr Chapman’s 40-year service to the school were “remarkable”.

“As a teacher of history, Mr Chapman has inspired a love of history in his students over successive generations. I often met Old Scholars who tell me that Mr Chapman was their favourite teacher.”

Mr Chapman’s son, Rowan, said his father had reached the heights of fame around the school.

“He’s a bit of a local legend to school alumni, current students and the school leadership team,” he said.

“He will leave a big hole in the school culture when he retires.”

Born and bred in Brisbane, Mr Chapman originally went to Griffith University studying environmental studies, before changing to teachers’ college and studying history, geography and English.

Married with four children and five grandchildren, who will keep him “busy in retirement”, Mr Chapman’s new goals include a lot of bicycle rides and indulging in his fanatical love of organic gardening.

“I’ve always been very aware of how lucky I am to have taught at such a good school,” Mr Chapman said.

“I’ve really enjoyed teaching and feel very blessed.

“One of the things I’ve loved about being a teacher is seeing kids have their ‘Ah-ha!’ moments — where you can see something has clicked with them, the light comes on and they understand.

St Lutheran College teacher Chris Chapman is one of the school's longest serving teacher and will retire this year. Picture, John Gass

“When I started there were blackboards and chalk everywhere.

“Overhead projectors were relatively new and were a game changer!

“But bit by bit more technology has come along and teaching has become much more technology based.”

Although schooling may have become more dependent on technology, Mr Chapman said he remained hands-on with his style of teaching: “I’ve been lucky to be in a very good school where I can enjoy my teaching.

“I teach with humour, anecdotes and dramatisations in my lessons. I like to bring fun into the lessons.”

Outside the classroom, Mr Chapman’s love of performing was famous at St Peters.

With comedy drama performances a daily occurrence at one stage, a memory he says he looks back at fondly.

“I think in many ways Dad was ahead of his time with a lot of his teaching methods,” Rowan Chapman said.

“Before Stephanie Alexander’s Kitchen Garden, he was dumping buckets of dirt outside the classroom and making the students dig up potatoes to cook!

“Before immersive education programs, he was getting his students to patrol through the St Peter’s rainforest recreating the trials of the Kokoda Track.”

Mr Chapman is well-known for taking classes down to the rainforest area next to the school where he would teach environmental based activities and historical re-enactments, such as the Kokoda Track, where students would crawl through the rainforest and experience how life was for soldiers.

Chris Chapman hopes to be remembered for making his classes fun and interactive, and for helping teach his students to be more empathetic. Picture, John Gass

“His genuine excitement and passion for the content he taught made ‘the work’ irresistible to students and, consequently, they remember it for decades afterwards,” Rowan Chapman said of his father.

Mr Chapman said things had become much more complicated over the years for teachers.

“There’s a lot more administration, a lot more paperwork and recordkeeping.

“Expectations of the students are much higher, marking has become much more complicated, but class sizes have gotten generally smaller, which is a good thing.

“Hopefully the students will remember a teacher who did his best to make subjects interesting.”

Mr Chapman said when asked how he hopes to be remembered by his students, and also as someone who helped them put themselves in the shoes of others.

“It’s very important to me to help students develop empathy for people,” Mr Chapman said.

As a history teacher, Mr Chapman explained why history was still so important for children to learn.

“The students I’m teaching now will be voting in a short few years.

“They have to understand things that have happened in the past in order to be able to make wise decisions as citizens in the future.

“I run into ex-students all the time! Even my chiropractor is an ex-student of mine. I’m teaching students now who’s parents I taught, the kids of former kids! It’s a strange but pleasant feeling.”

As for the future of schooling, Mr Chapman would like to see school teach students more resilience.

“We need to communicate to students that they are living in a time that may be hard, but that they will bounce back and to keep trying and keep at it.

“I take my responsibility as a Christian teacher very seriously. And I want my students to know that regardless of who they are or what talents they have, each child is a child of God”.