Retired Tennessee teacher Glenda Akin has lived and worked through a whole lot of history. And now she’s made history herself.
Akin, 84, has been certified by Guinness World Records as the longest serving female teacher at the same school.
“I loved my job. I didn’t mind getting up and going to school every day,” Akin told As It Happens guest host Paul Hunter.
“All of my family is gone, and so the school community, you know, they more or less became my family.”
‘Lifelong commitment to education’
Before retiring last year, Akin worked at Westmoreland High School, first as a teacher and later as a librarian, for 61 years and 43 days.
She has several years on Guinness’s longest serving male teacher, Paul Durietz, who clocked 54 years and 61 days at Woodland School in Gurnee, Ill., as of October 2024.
Akin says she even worked long enough to watch one of her students grow up, become a teacher at the school herself, then retire a full decade before she did.
“Ms. Akin’s lifelong commitment to education has shaped generations of students and left an unforgettable legacy in our school and community,” reads a post on Westmoreland High School’s Facebook page celebrating Akin’s achievement.
Akin says she’s taken aback by all the attention she’s getting. When Westmoreland shared the news, she only expected the school community to see it.
“But it went everywhere,” she said. “[I’m] even talking to someone in Canada about this. It’s just amazing.”
Cellphones and book bans
Throughout her long career, Akin — or Ms. Akin, as she’s known at school — mentored dozens of generations of students through periods of intense social and technological change.
She was born on Dec. 7, 1941, the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, pulling the U.S. into the Second World War, and began teaching in 1963 just a few months before the assassination of U.S. president John F. Kennedy.
“That was the first big historic thing that came along in my teaching,” she said. “Then, of course, a lot of other things after that.”
She was there to see the introduction of computers to the classroom and library system, and of course, the sudden explosion of students with smartphones — an issue schools are still wrestling with.
“I think they would do well to put them away when they’re at school,” Akin said.
She also served as a librarian at a time when school literature became an extremely politicized issue.
According to the American Library Association, organized efforts to ban books from U.S. public and school libraries began to ramp up dramatically in 2021. Books with racial or 2SLGBTQ+ content are the most common targets of censorship efforts, it said.
Similar battles have played out in Canadian provinces, towns and schools.
“As a librarian, I don’t think books should be banned,” Akin said.
“I don’t want pornographic material in a library and supporting things that are not right. However, I don’t want somebody else telling me what I can and can’t read. And I don’t think that some parents should be telling other parents and children what students could read.”
Just because Akin has retired at long last doesn’t mean she’s resting on her laurels.
“I’m not ready to sit down and give up yet,” she said. “I want to keep moving as long as I can.”
She’s an active member of her local seniors’ organization, plays bingo, and volunteers for both her local and church libraries.
“So there’s plenty to keep me busy,” she said.
