After 25 years of teaching, Becton teacher Ms. Selwocki will be entering retirement starting January 1, 2015. A graduate from Montclair State University, the foods teacher had her heart set out to teach young students the basic necessities of life. Before teaching at Becton, she taught cooking to middle school students at Lincoln School in Kearny.

For over a decade, Ms. Selwocki has taught students a variety of subjects. She started off lecturing adolescents on how to bake and practice basic food safety. Eventually, this lead her to teach other basic life courses, such as child care and development, independent living and sewing.

Ms. Selwocki, who was deeply inspired by her mother, began taking interest in cooking during her high school years. “I have three sisters, and we would always be in the kitchen cooking with our mom,” she said.

Ms. Selwocki had many positive teaching experiences. “I really had a lot of fun in this area because I get to work one on one with the students. When you work with students you get to see a different side of them.”

Although teaching foods is fun, it can also be quite stressful. She points out the difficult tasks of being a foods teacher. “Being flexible when we have a fire drill while we are in the middle of cooking is definitely tough. I think it was two weeks ago when we had a fire drill and the students were in the middle of baking. We had to stop what we were doing and once we were back in the classrooms we all had to rush to complete everything,” she said.

After her retirement, Ms. Selwocki plans on moving to Pennsylvania where she will tend to her new garden, craft, sew and read. She stated excitedly, “I bought two cookbooks: The America’s Test Kitchen Cookbook and The Cook’s Country Cookbook, that I can’t wait to use. I’ll finally get to have all the time to do anything I want!”

The future retiree also shared tips and advice for future students and teachers. “My tip to students would be to be nice to the new teachers,” she said. “A former principal once said, ‘Please remember each student is the apple of someone’s eye.’” She believes it is important to interact with each student as much as possible.

Ms. Selwocki has had many fond moments with art teacher Mrs. Colangelo and the school nurse Mrs. Dumansky and will miss them dearly. “Since Mrs. Colangelo’s room is right next to mine we often talk a lot. The nurse, Mrs. Savincki and I also talk a lot in school.” She will also deeply miss some of her fellow students enrolled in her classes.

As for the open Foods and Life Management position, Ms. Selwocki hopes that the new staff member will be just as passionate about teaching and cooking as she is.