Students and teachers at Kalianna Special School farewelled Bruce Salter on Friday.
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Mr Salter took his final class after teaching throughout rural Victoria for more than 45 years.
There was no shortage of students eager to say goodbye to Mr Salter with many eager to stay in touch.
It made for an emotional end to the school term.
“Having such an attachment is what it's about,” Mr Salter said.
Mr Salter spent the last 12 years of his career at Kalianna after developing an interest in helping children with learning difficulties early in his career.
“I'd always had an interest in kids with learning difficulties, that was my passion in rural schools,” he said.
“The average kid learns no matter what we do but the ones with learning difficulties don’t. The ones that struggled was where I focused my energies.”
After beginning teaching in the Goulburn Valley in 1973, Mr Salter spent 30 years teaching in north-east Victoria before arriving in Bendigo 12 years ago.
“I was mainly in rural schools that had one or two or maybe up to five teachers,” he said.
“Between wives I went and worked in Broome and when got married again I moved to Bendigo and picked up a job. I have loved Bendigo for 12 years.”
Mr Salter said it was a teacher’s passion that drove them to want to help students.
“There were a lot of ‘a ha’ moments for me. Some kids won’t learn without intervention,” he said.
“I would always come to work to have fun and a good time and maybe learn something.
“Getting on (with students) and learning the social side of things, that's really been the thing I have enjoyed, then tying in academics in to that.”
Mr Salter said it was important to have a good rapport with students.
“In special schools it's more about getting the social side and dealing with those types of things before we move onto the academic.
“Children with learning difficulties have so many other things in their lives that they need to deal with that they just haven’t got the capacity to take (learning) on board.
“So making them comfortable, talking with them and not at them, that sort of stuff is important.”
In the last 18 months, Mr Salter has been involved in Kalianna’s student engagement program.
“My time in administration was too busy and too far removed from what I wanted to do, so I came back into the classroom,” he said.
“Student engagement runs hands-on programs for things like bush cooking, teamwork and functional literacy and numeracy.”
With a lot of spare time on the horizon, Mr Salter said he is eager to travel.
“It’s definitely a new journey,” he said. “I want to travel and reacquaint my with community service clubs.”