Monday, January 1, 2018

SERIOUS FAMILY HISTORY

     The morning after my last post the son-in-law phoned to wish ma a happy new year.

      It didn't take long for us to get on the family history topic. Some how or other I let it out that I had a biography in the back of my head.  Now he was on a roll and the next thing you know he had got me enthusiastic about my biography.

     Now much of what's on this blog could be easily used in a biography.  Previously I've written about my Arctic experience,  in particular,  getting there. I did not go into the actual teaching experience.

     Now I'm the first to admit that I'm a random chaotic sort of soul. I know what I want to tell in the first few chapters , but here I am writing about things the happened at  the start of my professional career. I'm also an optimist to a fault so some how or other later on, I should be able to put all the bits and pieces together.

    Sound like a plan? 

    So my first year teaching?  

    I had finished my one year teacher training. Had I applied for a job? No.

    Now many people in my class had applied for jobs and been hired long before we finished the course.  I had to wait until I got my marks and new for sure that I had passed the course. Now it was getting late and about three weeks before school started.

    Fortunately jobs were a dime a dozen so I was hired to teach in a one room country school. Many things were set up. the community just said I would be boarding at Enn's because they needed the money from boarding the teacher

     The school was named Louisville and was 11 miles from one small village and nine mils from another village. There was post office and country store about three miles away.

   The school was old and maintenance and upkeep had been lacking for years.

    I got to the school a few days before school opening and rooted around the place to find things. I found text books and school supplies. I stored these in convenient locations. 

    On school opening day ten little beaners showed up. Yes, ten students. I had three gr. ones,  two grade twos and one each in gr three, four, five, seven and nine.





     Since I had attended such a school I knew how things worked. I made up a time table so that I could conveniently move from grade to grade.These kids had to do most of heir work independently and they were good at it.

    Now I had no music ability at all so these poor kids didn't get any music. 

    So I kept the fire going so we kept warm and we all worked together. 

    Now these kids taught me a great deal. The community was very supportive and gave me much encouragement.  . I felt good about that year and so decided that I would continue in education. I resigned after that one year so that I could go to university.