Paul Geerdts has started his new position as the shop teacher for grades 7-12 at Canora Composite School (CCS) and grades 10-12 at Invermay school, and said his main goal is to help his students be employable by teaching them the skills expected by prospective employers.
Geerdts was born and raised in South Africa (RSA) and has acquired plenty of knowledge and experience regarding skills needed to succeed in various trades.
As a child, he enjoyed working with his father, who worked in construction, and his grandfather, who was an electrician for the city of Johannesburg.
After high school graduation in 1992, Geerdts studied in a program where he acquired his bachelor of education degree and his certification as an electrician at the same time in 1996.
After graduation, he acquired his trades-based apprenticeship in construction and carpentry, which included training in structural welding, as well as in brick and mortar, concrete and wood frame construction. He acquired his electrical engineering certification in 2003.
Geerdts moved to Canada in 2008 when he was recruited by a construction company located in Williams Lake, B.C., which is in the Cariboo region. But he said that position was short-lived.
“Due to the housing crash in the U.S. and the resulting recession, there was very little construction going on. So I was looking for a job.”
He took advantage of his education degree and accepted a position teaching welding and construction to grade 7-12 students at the school in Ile a la Crosse in northern Saskatchewan, which he held from 2009-2011.
Then he decided to move further south to Meadow Lake and worked as an electrician for about three years.
In 2014 he found employment in the electrical construction field, and worked in the Peace River Region of Alberta and in Hay River, NWT for nearly two years. During that time, he spent about five months as a substitute welding teacher.
In early 2016, Geerdts moved back to Saskatchewan, doing mainly agriculture-related maintenance work until the summer of this year, when he accepted his present teaching position.
He said teaching can be extremely rewarding.
“I enjoy most the improvement in the work of students that can be seen over a period of time. Due to hard work by student and teacher, they and you get a great fulfilment in seeing the progress that can be made, if there is a partnership between student, teacher and parents.”
Geerdts likes to compare that partnership to one of those sturdy old three-legged cast iron cooking pots.
“If one of those legs is cut off, whether it’s lack of support from the teacher or from the parents, or if the student is not motivated, then the cooking pot is likely to fall over and spill, and the partnership will not succeed,” he said.
Instead of having the Invermay students travel to Canora for their classes, Geerdts plans to travel to Invermay to teach them at their own school. Not only will it reduce the amount of time they spend traveling and increase their classroom time, it will also keep more activity within Invermay. He feels this type of a step is important in making sure small communities stay active and viable.
Even though he hasn’t been in his new position for very long, Geerdts is very appreciative of the support he has received from other teachers and from the Good Spirit School Division (GSSD).
“I am impressed with how much the GSSD and CCS teachers care about these students.”
Geerdts and his wife Charlene live on a farm near Buchanan with their five children, four boys and one girl, ages two to 13. He said they grow vegetables and raise sheep, and he gets a lot of enjoyment from working on the farm when he’s not busy teaching.
