Dwight’s Gettinger has old school approach popular with kids

Every student coming through Dwight Elementary School over the last 32 years has been able to attend one of the more creatively planned third or fourth grade classes with Stinnett Gettinger.

Superintendent Josh Delong said Gettinger is the most unique teacher he’s ever seen, and Gettinger said it’s because of the connection he has with the students. It’s not just about grades and what he can teach them academically.

For Gettinger, it’s about what lessons he can get students to take with them in the future.

He starts every year with a movie party in the school gym as part of the Accelerated Reader program. He takes the kids roller skating, and swimming, and at the end of the year they celebrate with an “over-nighter,” as Gettinger called it, which is a lock-in sleepover at the school where students can play hide and seek in the hallways and see parts of the school they otherwise wouldn’t get to see.

Gettinger has been doing this for a long time. Many of the students he has now are children of students he had years ago. He said it works because the parents see the effect it has on the kids.

“Parents see you doing stuff like that and automatically, they like you,” Gettinger said. “The kids like you, and you get to teach them and they’re listening, because you know, they’re kids. They want to win one for the gipper all the time, and when you do fun stuff, they fall right into your corner and work hard.”

One of Gettinger’s students is the son of a man Gettinger had his first year, and that student was one of Gettinger’s first friends when he moved to Dwight.

Gettinger has had a hand in just about everything at the school from the moment he got there. He’s been a wrestling coach, a basketball coach, and a track coach. He was just finishing up track practice on a windy day when he shared his story.

Gettinger said he moved to Dwight from a small town of about 200 people in southern Indian after graduating from Eastern Illinois University in the early 1990s.

His wife is also a teacher in the life skills class at Dwight High School.

“We were just welcomed to the community so much, and we love the community here,” Gettinger said. “I’m a teacher, everyone treated me really well and I just decided to stay.”

Gettinger comes from a family of teachers: His brother John just retired after teaching for 43 years and his sister Emily retired after 31 years. He has another sister, Katie, who stopped teaching after 20 years and another, Ann, who was a teacher when she passed away.

“Mom was the school teacher, but she didn’t teach,” Gettinger said. “She stayed home and had kids.”

Gettinger is preparing for his retirement as well. The 2024-25 school year will be his last, which means it’s the last year the students will get to complete another Gettinger class tradition. They get to paint his old truck, which is currently pink.

In retirement, he said he plans on doing some traveling and managing the family cabin in Minnesota. He said everyone gets together there a few times a year, and he’s been an outdoorsman and hobbyist ever since he can remember. He’s even run the Chicago Marathon.

Much has changed in the time since Gettinger started teaching. First, he said there used to just be one standardized tests. The students now get over 25, and he said he doesn’t see much use for that.

He also said the kids used to have fewer rules. Back in the day, the kids could go out and build snowmen at recess. Now, temperatures hit 30 degrees and there’s a wind, so it’ll be too cold to take the kids outside.

“I’ll tell you, the kids will read three books to build a snowman,” Gettinger said. “It’s just limiting the fun things we can do with the kids, and takes away some of our tools.”

He also remembers the days when school lunches and breakfasts were made at the school, and everything didn’t come in a plastic bag.