“To stay as long as I have, I obviously love it. I wish I had another 55 years,” she said.
Born in Yea, Mrs Tuckwell has taught for all but two of those 55 years at Seymour College.
Her initial posting was to Cobram High School, where she met her husband Jim. But two years later, after the death of her father, she transferred to Seymour.
To put Mrs Tuckwell’s long service into perspective, Mr Tuckwell retired 23 years ago.
“I like working with young people, trying to make a difference with young people. Seeing them develop and grow,” she said.
A secondary art and craft-trained teacher, Mrs Tuckwell began her training in 1961 at Melbourne Teachers College, and has seen dramatic changes in teaching methods and technology since then.
“It does change, as it should,” she said.
“Generally speaking, the changes have been good and they move with the times, with technology.
“When I started it was mostly painting and drawing, clay, print-making. Now, of course, we’re into the field of digital photography and digital art.
“It has had a lot of changes. There’s still a lot of things you do using the traditional techniques, but you’re looking for different outcomes.”
She said it had been a privilege to help guide students into professions within the artistic fields, and she had marvelled at the talents of of many.
“Yes, lots of talent. We’ve had people go on into art fields and textiles,” Mrs Tuckwell said.
“I’ve probably spent more time teaching textiles over the years and we’ve had a number go on into those fields.
“A number of them have gone on and done really well and flourished in the textile industry.”
Mrs Tuckwell’s passion for textiles has taken her around the world, as a teacher always wanting to learn more.
“I’ve done a lot of travelling over the last 20 years with textiles groups to see how textiles are done in a traditional sense,” she said.
“South America , Myanmar, Oman, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia, Mongolia. I’ve been blessed with being able to travel to so many places with a group of like-minded people.”
She urged people not to dismiss the arts as not as important as some of the other subjects in education, maintaining they were an integral part of our lives.
“We live in a world of art. Everything around us, one way or another, is an art form,” she said.
“It doesn’t have to be painting or photography. Like the houses we live in, they’re a type of art in one sense.
“It really is in everything we see and do.
“If we didn’t worry about how things appeared, it would be a fairly dull and uninteresting surroundings.
“There’s great emphasis placed on numeracy and literacy, which is how it should be, but art is important and I think textiles is very important, because we need to wear clothes, especially now it’s cold.”
Now teaching the children of children she previously taught, Mrs Tuckwell was recently recognised for her work in the teaching profession by then-Deputy Premier and Education Minister James Merlino, but she said the role had been less of a job for her than a vocation.
“It’s been a very positive vocation and I hope the students have got as much out of it as I have,” she said.
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