Beloved Teacher Receives Video Montage Congratulating Their Retirement
/It was a heartfelt moment for the now-retired supply teacher Wadsworth Kulatungam as he received a video montage from former students, friends and coworkers congratulating his retirement sent Wednesday.
PTBOCanada Editor David Tuan Bui with Wadsworth Kulatungam circa 2008 and 2021. Bui was a former student of Kulatungam periodically as a supply teacher since 1998. Photos by David Tuan Bui
Kulatungam — better known as Mr. Wadsworth — said he was touched when he was surprised by the 34 people that congratulated him on his retirement of the video montage.
"It was sort of overwhelming looking at it,” said Kulatungam. “It was quite emotional too.”
He retired in December 2020 after 25 years as a supply teacher. He retired citing that it was his time and he wanted to leave on a good note.
The montage was started by former colleague Colleen Crawley, English teacher at St. Peter’s Catholic Secondary School. It was Kulatungam’s last place of employment.
She started an open campaign on Facebook to allow anyone to send video clips of their well-wishes to Kulatungam.
“He is so well-loved by students and staff alike that I always imagined his retirement would call for a big celebration,” said Crawley. “Since the pandemic did not allow this, I decided to make the group video to allow people the opportunity to wish him well.”
Colleen Crawley’s recruitment of people to give videos to Kulatungam was shared 89 times on her Facebook post alone. Photo Courtesy of Colleen Crawley.
