Mr G thanked for 40 years of service

COMPANY loyalty is hard to find in 2010, so it is unique that Beth Rivkah Ladies College will have the opportunity to pay tribute later this month to its principal of 40 years, Shmuel Gurewicz.

Gurewicz, affectionately known as Mr G, said he regards the role as shlichut, or service, and will continue as long as he is asked.

“Maybe I did something right or maybe it was good mazal,” he told The AJN this week, when asked how he outlasted principals of all of Melbourne’s other Jewish schools.

The great-grandfather of two also thanked his family, who he said struggled at times to have him as their boss — in his wife’s case — and a teacher — in his children’s case.

Asked for his favourite Beth Rivkah moment, Gurewicz came up with an unlikely contender. Taking a sports class after another teacher called in sick, Gurewicz noticed one girl — “a big shlemazel” — was going to be picked last for the basketball team.

He said, “I winked, just winked” at one of the team captains, indicating she should choose the girl.

“She did, and her team lost,” the principal recalled.

At the end of the class, the captain approached him: “She said, ‘I lost the game, but I won the day’.

“These type of things make me teary-eyed. These things make the day, make the week.”

Over four decades, he has noticed a number of changes to education in Australia. “The role of teachers is changing very rapidly,” he said.

In the past, he explained, schools were supplementing what was being taught at home by parents. Today, though, many students are coming to school with little or no knowledge of both general and Jewish studies.

Technology is also playing a far greater role in education, with teachers now required to impart more than just a few basic facts. “Press one button [on the internet] and students know more than the teacher,” he said of developments such as Google and Wikipedia.

Today, he said, teachers need to instruct their pupils on how to negotiate masses of information and how to disseminate facts.

The third change he has noticed is in student and parent behaviour. “The whole concept of authority has also changed,” he said. “No longer do we have the case that the teacher is always right. They don’t accept that we know best.”

NAOMI LEVIN