ANOTHER OLD STORY

       Over my life I have had many experiences and adventures.

      I was a teacher for a while...37 years. Teaching was a challenge but a very satisfying experience.

     I entered teacher's college before my 18th birthday. This was a one year course that did a pretty good job of preparing people to teach. 

     I got a job in a one room country school. I started teaching before my 19th birthday. Most people would look at 19 year olds as if they were a joke in a classroom. 19 year olds would not be hired today. 

    I had nine students. The school building was old and in very poor condition. It was built using green lumber which shrunk so there were many cracks in the walls.. You could see daylight out of the northeast corner. There was no insulation. It was heated by a heater not a furnace. Sometimes we would sit around the heater to keep warm. Most mornings we sat around the heater until the building warmed up.

    I liked working with those nine kids. I particularly liked the grade ones. It was most satisfying to  see how much they had learned in one year.

    I enjoyed this year. The parents were most supportive. It was at a time when the rural population was in decline. Schools with this level of enrolment should have been closed but, school divisions could not purchase buses and there wasn't equipment to clean snow off the roads.

   I taught one year and resigned. The district wanted me to stay. They had a series of poor teachers before me so wanted me to stay. 

   The next  year the school was closed and the students bused to town. 

AN EPIPHANY

     I was a t...Yes you know this familiar start to  post of mine.

      I took a one year teacher training program in 1957-58. The training was very basic. There was also a six week practicum in the program. We took many courses but they were brief. Everybody got the same course: primary methods, reading, art, music, phys.ed. administration, classroom organization... Discipline was emphasized. Did I say discipline was emphasized? Yes , I did. 

      These were the days when discipline was strict. Classroom control was everything. Anything fast and dirty was used to get these goals. School trustees were only concerned about discipline...good behavior. They didn't seem to get learning strategies and achievement. Terrible things were d

one: strap, cane, shaking, shoving, slapping, pulling hair...awful things.

     Since I got half my education in the 40's, I was exposed to the discipline regime.

     I got the strap  but I well remember one and why I got it. This is the classroom and the teacher. when I look back at things this lady was an excellent teacher. I'm the innocent little fellow in the middle line from the teacher.

     In the one room schools the teacher went to his/her house to eat lunch and the students ate their lunch in the classroom without supervision. This worked fine 99.9% of the time. Somehow or other WWWX broke out one noon hour. For some reason or other we started throwing chalk brushes. The fight became intense and was it ever fun until the teacher walked in. Some of us were so intent in the activity that we didn't see the teacher. I was one of them.

     The teacher was very angry and we were sent to the cloakroom and soon she came in with the strap and we caught it. I was angry. We were having fun. Most of all , some of the people who were quick enough to see the teacher didn't get strapped. Did I stop doing stupid things? Well no. I still haven't stopped doing dumb things. 

    So I started my teaching career and the first part of it I emphasized good behavior. Many rants and raves occurred. One student even got the strap.

    Over the years and about mid career I gradually changed. I could see that ranting and raving sometimes caused more harm than good and in most cases didn't help the situation.

     I deliberately went low key. The adrenaline level was lowered. Problems that could have happened sometimes didn't happen. I rarely yelled. If I did yell, I sometimes heard, "He never yells.We better be good!" I used eye contact, hand motions ...low key stuff. Sometimes sterner methods were necessary. 

    So about mid career, I had learned some different strategies and how to apply them. We were given many professional in services. These strategies lowered stress and I went home at the end of the day in a much better mood.

    So I guess you could say that I had a gradual epiphany.

THREE STRIKES

       I attended a Teachers' College in 1957-58. It was organized as a glorified elementary school. We were organized in classes and the whole class moved throughout the day. We were together for everything for the whole year. We even had coed phys. ed!

      75% of us were rural kids from farms or small rural towns. About 50% of us were right out of highschool and the others had done other things before attending the teachers' college. So most of us started the year and didn't know any other students. Since we were in the same class all year, we made some great friendships.

     At the end of the year all of us went our separate ways. About half of these students never taught. They decided they wanted to do something else. Many of the girls got married.

    I soon moved far and wide. I saw very few of these people after I finished teachers' college.

    So every once in  awhile I will google a name. You find some people that you know of.

    The other night I googled the names of three  guys that were my former colleagues.  I found obituaries for all three of these guys. I had not seen them from the day we left teachers' college. What a shock! We had been together for a year as 18-19 year olds. 59 years later they were gone. Two of these fellows made a career of teaching. One did not teach and went into business.

   I spent a year with 400 students and often wonder what happened to them.

    So I made three strikes and missed on each one. 

    How about you? Have you kept in contact with students from a long time ago?