Special Education Teacher Art Finger is retiring after more than two decades of working at Chelsea High School. He has built long lasting relationships with students and staff, and is going to be missed deeply by students and coworkers.
“I'm going to miss the students, first and foremost. There is a large number of teachers that I have built relationships with that I'll miss, definitely,” Finger said.
During the interview, Finger gestures to a bulletin board behind his desk filled with pictures of past and present students to visualize how important the close relationships he has with students are to him.
“Well, it's interesting, if you look around, right? Yeah, you see over there all of those things. Those are the close relationships that I've built with students, and it’s allowed me to share successes with them that they didn’t know they could have.” Finger said.
Finger got to where he is today by working in Child Protective Services, working in a gang task force in Detroit and even working with substance abuse for adolescents.
“And from that, I realized, ‘I've lost my smile.’ So someone challenged me to get involved in education and work with kids before they got to that point of having a crisis,” said Finger. “So that's what brought me into education.”
Students speak about how Finger has helped them in more ways than he might realize, whether it’s help with getting grades up, or just having someone to talk to when things are tough.
“I was struggling with my mental health from the beginning of the year, and he was just there for me emotionally and academically,” freshman Brooklyn Clemons said. “When my grades started to drop, he was able to help me get them back up.”
If a student needs advice, Mr. Finger is one of the teachers they will go to, and they will carry that advice with them all throughout their high school and future careers.
“He really made me want to become better by just helping me push through things and helping me learn how to do things properly,” freshman Landon Scripter said.
After his retirement, Finger plans to do many things, such as spending time with family, playing golf, and spending the winter months on a golf course in Florida.
“What I'm going to do first is take a little time with my family because, sometimes being in education takes away from family time, so I want to make sure I'm having some time with family,” Finger said. “Then I probably will get a little part time job at a golf course here in Michigan so that I can play golf when I'm not working, and then I have a home in Florida, and in the wintertime, if I decide I want to spend four or five months there, get a job, part time job in Florida at a golf course, to work there and play golf as well.”
Finger is very thankful for the opportunities he’s been given at CHS, whether it’s helping kids who had him as a teacher, or coworkers who have worked with him for a long time. The connections he has with those individuals shows how truly valued he is.
“It's allowed me to form relationships that I knew could and would last far after they were out of school, and it's given me an opportunity to realize that what I'm doing is making a difference in kids lives who normally might not have that,” Finger said.
