JUDITH James has spent four decades teaching Bermuda's children and hasn't experienced a single day of burn-out. She loves what she does.

Mrs. James last month received the Bermuda Overcoming Learning Disabilities/Difficulties long-service award along with Lorna Anderson of the Bermuda High School for Girls.

Mrs. James is currently the maths co-ordinator at Victor School Primary School. She has also taught at the now defunct Ord Road School, Paget Primary and Elliott Primary.

Teaching runs in the family. Her husband Leon is retired from his post in special education at the old Devon Lane school. Their daughter, Nikita Euler, is a literacy adviser at Paget Primary School. Her son Shannon is a science teacher at Dellwood Middle School and her son-in-law, William Euler, is the gym teacher at Dellwood.

This week photographer TAMELL SIMONS and reporter JESSIE MONIZ met this veteran teacher to talk about how children have changed and how they have stayed the same.

Q: Forty years is a long time. How do you avoid burn-out?

A: I put my trust in the Lord. I enjoy what I do. I love teaching because every day is different.

Q: Why did you decide to go into teaching?

A: In my day there weren't many options for young black women. It was either nursing or teaching. I didn't like the thought of giving people shots, so I decided to go into teaching. I had worked with the children at church, so I did have some experience

Q: Do you remember your first day on the job?

A: Yes, I was anxious, but I also felt so self-confident. In our day that's how people felt when they came out of school. I couldn't wait to get started. I couldn't wait to put my lesson plan together. In those days we didn't have any set thing.

I think we had the chance to be more creative. Today, there is a set curriculum. We put it together the way we learned in Canada, and our own way. I went to the Ottawa Teachers' College. They taught you not only how to teach, but also how to carry yourself as a professional. They taught us how to dress, and even how a professional would carry a handbag. (Laughter). They said a professional would never carry a handbag hanging down by the handles.

Q: Do you still carry your purse the way they taught you?

A: (Laughter). No, I usually sling it over my shoulder.

Q: What advice would you give to new teachers coming into the profession?

A: I would say, "Be professional. Be friendly, but don't be too familiar with the children." You don't have to be the child's buddy.

Q: How have things changed?

A: Parents are different. Some of them still make sure their children do their homework, but many don't. The children are the same, but I feel that they get away with much more than they used to.

Q: Do you think television has had a negative impact on today's children?

A: I do. I always read E.B. White's Charlotte's Web to my class before. But the last time I tried to read it to the children, they knew the answers to all the questions right away. They'd seen it on television. It was so disappointing. I haven't read it to them since. With so much television, they don't have to use their creativity.

Q: Do you think children are less creative now and more inhibited?

A: Yes. Why create? They can watch it all on television. In my day, you had a doll and you pretended its hair grew. You pretended it was eating. Now nothing is left to the imagination. The doll eats. Its hair grows.

Q: What do you do to combat this?

A: I give the children a take-home reader. There are rewards. We encourage parents to read to their children each night. In the classroom I try to provide books of different levels. I use to offer comic books to the children, but even those are different nowadays and you have to be careful that they are appropriate.

Q: Can you pick out the children in the classroom whose parents read to them?

A: You can. It often shows in their creative writing. Those that write well often are reading at home. There is really no excuse for not encouraging your children to read. There is the Scholastic Book club, now that is offered in most classrooms. That allows parents to order books at a reduced cost.

That's the reason these books were printed. Most parents are usually willing to send the money for the child to order the books. There is also the public library. Plus, with the Literacy Place programme there are many new books in the schools that the children can borrow.

Q: What other difficulties have you noticed?

A: Problem solving is a bigger problem. Money is a problem. When I was young, when your parents sent you to the store to buy something, you better have the exact change on the way back. But now you just hand a credit card to the cashier. Or the cashier calculates how much change you get.

Every day, I post a problem in the classroom for the children to figure out. One problem might be: "Today is a rainy day and I forgot my raincoat. Should I wait for my mother to pick me up? Should I call her and make her bring the raincoat?"

Many children, when faced with a problem, just give up and cry. They have trouble coping with life. There is a different problem of the day and they work at it, solve it and discuss it. I tell them there is no right and wrong answer, as long as you can come up with an answer.

Q: Have you worked with special needs children?

A: I have. I have worked with children who are deaf and children who are physically challenged. I still feel that we need special needs schools. I feel we are doing these children an injustice. There were smaller numbers in the classroom at Friendship Vale.

It's all right to mix socially, but in many cases the children need specialised supervision. Many regular classroom teachers are not trained to be special education teachers.

Q: What do you think about teachers being given extra days off?

A: I never experienced a feeling of burn-out, although I'm usually tired at the end of the school year. From my time, you worked. You wouldn't take a day off unless you were practically dying. I do feel teachers have more time now. It seems we work less and gather greater dividends.

If you were off sick, usually the teacher next door would watch the class. There was rarely any misbehaviour. But now, I think the substitutes come in for a few days and then leave and then another substitute comes in. There are too many interruptions. The children never have a chance to build up a rapport with the substitute teacher. When it was just the teacher next door, the children already respected and knew her.

Q: I understand you are the maths co-ordinator. Do most of the children dislike mathematics?

A:No, most children seem to prefer maths to language. When I was little I preferred language. I never understood how a pi could be square (pi squared). If the language isn't there though, you're never going to understand maths either.

In the classroom now we have lots of manipulatives to help make the concepts more clear. It helps the children who are kinesthetic learners (people who learn by touch and doing).

Q: How important is retraining?

A: It is very important. I have undergone retraining many different times. There is often training during the Easter break. They are always coming up with new twists to teach things, but maths and English basically remain the same.

Q: Do you think parents should turn the television off entirely?

A: Maybe they should. Maybe the children can watch for short periods on weekends. But the important thing is that parents screen what their children are watching. Many kids now have televisions in their rooms and the parents have no control. You wouldn't believe the things the children tell me they have been watching.

Q: Kids don't really go out to play?

A: No, they are inside all the time, either watching television or on the computer. Computers are good, but time on them still should be limited.

Q: How is computer education in the primary schools?

A: It is improving all the time. Every primary school has fairly decent computers now.

Q: What about the Youth Library?

A: I would say it is an underutilised resource. But now with Literacy Place we have all kinds of books in the schools. They are in colour. They are non-threatening. There really is no excuse. In school we have a part of the day called Uninterrupted Sustained Silent Reading.

The children read and the teacher reads. It is important the children see that the teacher enjoys reading. No one interrupts. Some children just look at the pictures. I tell the children they don't have to know every word.