In just over a week, psychology teacher Mrs. Pam Schleif will end her teaching career spanning four decades.

Society and a love of history were what propelled Schleif into the teaching field while she was a college student at Bloomsburg University in the early 1970s. “This was a time period where there weren’t as many options available for women. So basically you thought of nursing or teaching, and I knew I wasn’t qualified for nursing,” said Schleif.  Along with her passion for history, Schleif enjoyed working with kids so a career as a teacher just made sense.

However, due to her grandfather’s past, Schlief ended up becoming a psychology teacher. Her grandfather was the director of Vargue, an institution for the criminally insane. Remembering the stories of her grandfather she heard during her childhood, Schleif began to take psychology classes and she ended up minoring in the subject.

“At that time they weren’t actually offering psychology at the high school level, so when they finally started to do it they looked around for someone that had the background [in it] and that was me,” said Schleif.

Over her 40-year career, Schleif has taught at a plethora of schools all ranging in size. She began as a middle school teacher, teaching seventh graders. She then worked at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School until the birth of her first child. After talking a year and a half off, Schleif entered the field again and worked part time at an Orthodox Jewish school, an all boys school. Next she taught at Gwynedd Mercy, an all girls school. In 1988, Schlief became a member of the North Penn faculty.

Having graduated from a high school with only 90 students in her senior class, in Schleif’s mind what sets North Penn apart from the other schools is its magnitude. 

 “The sheer size of North Penn was a little hard for me to get used to. Everybody finds their own niche and they kind of stick to that, where the small schools everybody knows one another,” said Schlief. However, she notes the size allows students to have more opportunities and experience more.

However, the size of North Penn has supplied Schleif with her favorite aspect of school, the students. “I have a lot of memories of individual students and activities in class. I have also had the experience of students coming back after they have gone off to college and taken some psychology courses and even going on to becoming neuroscientists, or doing research and writing books on the field,” said Schleif.

Schleif has a lot of plans regarding her upcoming retirement. Her son just got engaged so she is looking forward to an upcoming wedding. In October she is taking her mother on a cruise of the Mediterranean. Yet most of her time will be spent playing, well, “attempting to play golf” as Schleif put it.