The successful entrepreneur who gave up business to become a village teacher. “The salary was a shock!”

Diana Blînda wanted to pass on her experience in business and life, and now she teaches using atypical methods at a school in Chitila. The students perform in plays created by them and came up with the idea of ​​writing a school newspaper.

Diana Blînda (56 years old) became a teacher in 2018 after founding with a partner one of the best-known design and ergonomic furniture companies in Romania.

He first worked in human resources and marketing at several companies, he also had a children's book publishing house, which he opened with a math teacher, and then he started again with a business partner with who had previously worked. The idea of ​​creating an office fit-out company proved to be a success, evidenced by the fact that they opened franchises in Timișoara and Cluj.

At the age of 50, he decided that he needed a change and entered the Teach for Romania program, and the company remained in the hands of his business partner.

“I was thinking of doing a project that would have a noble cause: nature, education. I wanted to do something special from what I was doing in the company, to be a project in which I would give all my professional and life experience. Then I found out about Teach for Romania and I decided on the spot that this is the project I want to get involved in”, Diana told “Weekend Adevărul” how it all started.

It was not easy for him to move from the status of a businessman to that of a state employee. “It was like a leap into the void. The salary was a shock, but I didn't go into Education for the money. It was also a shock when I went from maximum freedom of action at the company to things that had to be done, but which no one told you that you had to do”,
the teacher reveals to us.

In 2020, she graduated from the Pedagogy courses in Primary and Preschool Education of the “Dimitrie Cantemir” Christian University in Bucharest, and from 2022 she is a teacher at the “Prof. Ion Vișoiu” from Chitila, Ilfov county.

Previously, he was in India, where he began training to obtain Montessori teacher certification, after previously completing the intensive courses of the Teach for Romania Academy.

“From India I brought to the classroom the idea of freedom with responsibility and discipline with limits. I taught them simple but very important things: you take something off the shelf, put it back, you made a mess, clean it up. It's a way of giving children responsibility that also gives them mental discipline,” explained the teacher.

Business principles become lessons

Diana applies principles and ideas from entrepreneurship to the classroom in a form adapted to students. In business, freedom is at a high price, but with certain limits.

“You are free to do what you want, but without doing harm and within the limits of your time, physical and mental resources. These translate into how well you cope with the stress at the office, how long you can stay away from your family when you spend a lot of time at work and how you manage your financial resources so that the company lasts 5, 10 years”, exemplifies the teacher.

The children learned that they have the freedom to read, but without disturbing their classmates, and that they can run around the school yard, but without breaking tree branches and throwing cones at pigeons. One of her future plans is to get them out of school as much as possible.

For example, he wants to take them to the “George Enescu” Memorial House in Sinaia, so that the little ones can have an interesting experience. If he doesn't get to go out with them too often, he brings special guests to class.

The students interacted with an architect, a lawyer, a well-known entrepreneur, Marius Ștefan, a former CFR employee, a policeman, a DJ, a bank manager, who symbolically opened a bank branch in the classroom, a financial consultant who told about the history of money and how bartering was done in the old days, an amateur mountaineer and an accountant turned magician.

“I taught them at all these meetings to overcome their fear of public speaking, because everyone introduced themselves and asked questions of the guests,” says Diana.

The school newspaper

In the fall of 2023 he came up with a unique idea in the school. It started from the talent of each child in the class and then put vouchers on sale in the commune at the autumn fair, based on which the students offered lessons in fencing, mathematics, football and calligraphy.

“We made gift vouchers with lessons for their schoolmates and more. Several teachers and even the mayor bought vouchers. Children like new ideas and throw themselves into it with passion when they are left to decide and do various things on their own,”
says Diana. Her idea has already been taken up by another colleague who teaches in Ferentari.

Another secret of her success in the classroom is that she never interrupts the working children. If they are reading, doing math or painting, he respects their concentration and lets them finish, even if he confesses that it is not always easy for him.

“If you let children come up with ideas, they learn more easily and better”, points the teacher. For example, the students thought of making a school newspaper, where they write about themselves, and in 2023 they interviewed the children who participated in the autumn fair, a simple and effective solution for literacy development.

The challenge for the next period is to publish the newspaper online. Most do not have computers or laptops at home, and Diana says they would need at least three to four computers in the classroom to be able to work in teams.

She will turn to her business acquaintances to get them through donations, as she did during the pandemic, when she received several tablets and a laptop so that students could do online school.

With the thought, on the map of Europe

Diana is extremely involved in the lives of her students and has so far organized two summer schools in Chitila. In the 2023 edition, he made an imaginary trip to Europe with the students, and every day the children looked for a country on the map and talked about its capital, about the language, customs and traditions there, about geography, food and any other information at which the little ones had access to.

In 2024, he organized a theater show designed and performed by students also at the summer school, in which he also involved the local community: parents, fellow chancellors and an actress and acting trainer.

DIANA BLÍNDA PHOTO GALLERY

“They built a play based on their favorite characters. We also brought a music teacher, who composed a song for them, which they performed at the end of the play”explains the teacher, who developed the little ones' creativity, imagination and team spirit, but also taught them how to overcome their fear of speaking in public.

She does not know how long she will remain a teacher, but if at some point she decides to return to business, she says she will do entrepreneurship in education. Until then, the children in the classroom are the priority and she wants them to always push their limits and dare to dream: “First of all, I want my students to have courage and to know themselves very well, to know what they can and cannot do, what they want and how to relate to others.”