Kalli Rõõmusaar says humour matters most

Music teacher Kalli Rõõmusaar says a sense of humour is the most important quality a person can have. She is marking 40 years as a teacher, ERR reported.

At an anniversary celebration at Vändra Gymnasium, a school, Rõõmusaar performed a yodel in front of the school community. Kairi Rikker, the community and culture manager in Vändra, filmed it and posted the video on social media, where it received thousands of likes.

Rõõmusaar told the ERR programme Ringvaade that she took up yodelling by chance about 50 years ago. Her older sister, who was studying to become a music teacher at Tartu Pedagogical School, came home learning to yodel. Rõõmusaar tried it too, and found she could do it. “It has been my only hit ever since,” she said.

She has performed her signature yodel on the school stage with Uku Suviste and on television with her two sisters and daughter. Music teaching also runs in her family: seven members of her mother’s side are music teachers.

Students at the school’s boys’ choir said they liked Rõõmusaar because she was “a little funnier and more cheerful than the others.” They call her “Boss,” a nickname that began as a joke after she told students who were talking back that she was the boss. Rõõmusaar said music teachers can have a more relaxed relationship with students than teachers of some other subjects.

She said people need to find their own energy and that she has faced setbacks, though her patience has grown shorter. As a teacher, she wants her students to enjoy singing, even if it takes time. “When I see that by spring a child has started singing, that feels good,” she said.