Friday, May 28, 2021, will be a bittersweet day for Linda Vanderaa, who will be celebrating her last graduation as a teacher at Southwest MN Christian Schools. Linda’s teaching career has spanned 30 years, 28 of which were in the resource room at SWC. In addition to working with the resource students, Linda worked with the entire freshman class for several periods early first semester. The students take various evaluations that help determine their learning style and then she helps them implement that style of learning.  “Habits are difficult to replace, so I  also take the opportunity to pray for those students; mostly that those first quizzes and tests as freshmen go well after trying new ways of learning and studying,” said Linda.

Linda moved with her parents, Gerben and Wilma Van’t Hul, from Luverne to South Dakota, when she was an infant, so her first years of education were in Brandon, S.D. Partway through second grade, her family moved back to the Edgerton/Leota area and she came to ECES.

Linda has always wanted to be a teacher. When she was in junior high, one of her teachers, by her example, affirmed that decision.  She graduated from Southwest Christian High School in 1973 and attended Dordt College. Initially she debated whether to pursue a special education degree or a general teaching degree, but ultimately, at that point in life, finances won the day as the special education degree required more years of education. Linda graduated from Dordt (now Dordt University) in 1977, and taught in De Motte, Ind. After marrying Leland Vanderaa in 1978, Linda taught one year in Oak Lawn, Ill. Both of those years were at the elementary level. Their oldest child, John, was born in Oak Lawn and Linda became a stay-at-home mom until their youngest child started school.

During those years of raising her children, Linda’s love for the struggling student persisted, so she was delighted when Henry Kramer recruited her for the Southwest Christian High School resource room for the 1992-1993 school year.

Her favorite part of being a resource teacher is helping students believe in themselves and their own abilities, along with introducing the students to new and different tools they can use to better learn on their own. Her least favorite is when students are somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of receiving help from the resource teacher or are so set in their patterns that they are uneasy or unwilling to try some of the new techniques. Thinking back over her teaching years, the most challenging time for her was due to COVID-19 and long-distance teaching. Not being able to physically see what a student was working on did not make for an ideal learning environment.