Beginnings

November 11, 2011

The world didn’t end, but lots of people got married on 11-11-11 at 11:11. Guess those folks didn’t remember that human beings made the calendar and that the universe might not recognize that the date was full of elevens. At least they shouldn’t have trouble remembering their anniversaries, and that is as good a reason as any to choose a date.

My birthday is on the 29^th of the month and 2 + 9 = 11, so this might be a good time for me to start a blog. Diane, a secretary at my school, has been after me to write one during this, my final year of teaching before I retire after a long career in education. I will try to be more consistent with this than I was years ago with my sons’ baby books.

In the fall of 1966 when I started my career in education, never in my wildest nightmares did I expect to still be teaching at the ripe young age of sixty-six. Thinking in terms of four and a half decades would not have been possible back then when I took things a day at a time. Despite all the years and principals and colleagues and students that have passed my way in the interim, I still think in terms of a day at a time. I have given up on the idea of reaching a magic age when I would have all of the answers.

My supervising teacher in a sixth grade class of 46 students during the winter of 1965-6 in the Cathedral School in Toledo, Ohio was at least seven months pregnant. I remember her struggling up and down the stairs to our third floor room, relieved to have some help with that huge class but lacking energy to guide a new teacher. Teacher prep was a bit looser than it is now, but, during that experience, I did learn that I loved being around young people and fed on their enthusiasm.

In the fall of ’66, my first class at Masson School in Lorain, Ohio consisted of 24 boys and 14 girls in a fourth grade room on the corner--eight students fewer than I had in Toledo. As with most “firsts”, my experiences in the first class I could call my own are burned in my memory. I remember the sick hamster one boy brought to school on day one and how we found it dead after lunch. I remember the notes I received from students begging to be moved away from the “stink zone” of the bed-wetter whose mother dressed him for school at night because she had to leave for work at 3:30 in the morning.

I am still embarrassed to admit that I actually paddled a student for throwing a pencil that hit a classmate in the eye. We didn’t have a school psychologist and hadn’t heard of Responsive Classroom, and the forty-something teacher who served as a mentor suggested paddling as a way of gaining control of this particular student.

Most of the students walked home for lunch where their stay-at-home moms welcomed them while we teachers enjoyed a fairly relaxing lunch in the teachers’ lounge followed by the luxury of some prep time while the students were gone.

No one goes home for lunch these days, although parents occasionally come in to eat with their children. If I decided to paddle a child now, I would be writing this from a prison cell. For most teachers I know, the “25-minute uninterrupted lunch” usually involves conversations about that day’s lesson in the new math curriculum followed by a quick run to the office for mail. However, I still am fueled by the enthusiasm of my students even though this energizer bunny needs extra rest to get ready for the next day.