The idea behind this project is to collect the individual teacher autobiographies of our members as they retire and join Round Two.
The
open-ended document chronicles the collective teaching
experiences of award-winning teachers during the second half of the
20th century and beyond.
Each story is approximately two pages in length so only gives a glimpse into the professional career of our members.
The
retired teachers may choose the focus of their stories.
Some
have written about their first year of teaching while others have summarized
their entire careers or written about teaching particular subjects or age
levels.
Many
have incorporated the ambiance of the historical time period so the reader
is able to draw conclusions about what it was like to live in America then
and teach school.
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Editor's Note: I have taken excerpts from the Round II artifact project to give you a taste of what our members have written in their teacher autobiographies. Each complete story is two to three pages in length, but you have found only two or three paragraphs here. They are arranged chronologically according to the first year of teaching.
Hopefully, as new members join Round II, they will submit their stories.
An
Educational journey Through Seven Decades
Introduction to life education began to “kick in” during US Navy
years of 1944-1946, a 2-1⁄2 year stint as a hospital corpsman and
electrocardiograph technician. This
culminated in 18 months at the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, MD.
While being trained as a technician, I was under the command and tutelage
of Commander Berkley, who eventually became the cardiologist for President
Kennedy. Furthermore, at Bethesda I
was most fortunate to be assigned to FDR’s heart doctor. The President made
frequent trips to Bethesda. Also,
every officer above a commander had to undergo a physical every six months.
All the name admirals of the period from Nimitz to Halsey visited.
I came in contact with and spoke to many outstanding individuals of the
decade, especially during WWII.
Upon release from the Navy in 1946, I was accepted as a freshman at Penn
State, but PSU took no freshmen on campus from1946-1951. Freshmen were assigned
to their closest Teachers College so I enrolled at Kutztown Teacher College.
(These have evolved through Normal Schools, Teachers College, State
Teachers College to finally, State Universities – I’ve seen it all).
During the freshman year, PSU encouraged potential physical education
majors to concentrate on science courses. My
interest in science was rekindled from the service years. This was mainly the
result of the Biology Chairman, Dr. Cyrus Beekey, who eventually became the
University’s President. I
remained at Kutztown for three years as a science major and participated in the
football and tennis teams. Currently,
all the various new buildings on campus have been named for the three
presidents, athletic director, and the plethora of professors that I knew during
my degree program.
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It
Was Different Then
Elementary teachers had no preparation periods, no aides or classroom
support systems. Class size would average from thirty-three to thirty-eight
students. One year my first grade class numbered fifty-four students with five
sets of twins! Recess was indoors as there was no playground. Sometimes games
were played in an empty room called the gym when it was available. Recess time
also gave an opportunity for children to use the bathroom facilities and get a
quick drink of water at the fountain. An hour at noon permitted the children to
walk home for lunch. Tardiness was very unusual. There were no school lunches.
Student desks and chairs were bolted to the floor which made creative grouping
impossible. Coats were hung on hooks mounted on the back wall of the classroom.
Each day began with a reading from the Bible, the Lord’s Prayer, Salute
to the Flag and singing either America
or the Star Spangled Banner. Reading
poetry followed. Many of the poems became favorites, and the children often
requested them. Very often favorite poems were committed to memory. The date was
marked on a large calendar. Birthdays and holidays were noted. Indoor and
outdoor thermometers were read for comparison of temperatures. The type of
weather for the day was discussed, and the children made predictions for sun
(clear weather), clouds, rain or snow. A weather symbol was placed on the
calendar date. At the end of the day we quickly ascertained who were the good
weather predictors.
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Changes
As a first grade teacher, changes in the approaches to teaching reading
were very evident. In elementary school I was taught to read by the whole word
method. Vocabulary was memorized, word-by-word. When I was a beginning teacher,
phonics was in vogue with its emphasis upon learning rules. For a while the use
of machines as learning centers to teach the reading process was popular. Later,
whole language was considered the right way to teach reading. Phonics was out,
and isolation of sounds was a no-no. Once again, things switched as phonics came
back into the picture with stress on a well-balanced literacy program. …
My salary the first year I taught was $3,800 so salaries certainly improved along with benefits. Perhaps, the only things that have not changed over these many years are the heart of a child and the heart of the teacher. They, as before, still want to learn and we passionately still want to teach.
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Because my eight-month stint as a German teacher had been successful, I
was hired to teach 7th grade geography at Pocono Mountain in 1982
when an opening occurred. Ironically,
when we moved to Pennsylvania, the Department of Education certified me to teach
English and social studies, including geography, because I had taught the
subject in Germany. My geography
credentials were still 7th grade geography and many years of travel.
Therefore, in order to be sure I was presenting accurate information, I
took summer courses in geography at Kutztown University and attended geography
workshops whenever they were offered.
In the mid-1980’s the National Geographic Society (NGS) became
concerned that too many unqualified teachers were teaching geography. Over a
ten-year period NGS invested millions of dollars to improve geography education
in America. The Society initiated month-long Summer Geography Institutes at its
headquarters in Washington, D.C. to train teachers from each state. I applied
and was fortunate to be one of the five teachers from Pennsylvania selected for
the 1990 Institute. Mornings were
spent at lectures by noted geography professors from across the country.
Afternoons were spent with facilitators demonstrating lessons based on
the morning’s lecture, or practicing our best geography lessons on each other
in small groups. At the end of the Institute, the charge given by NGS to each
of us participants was to return to our respective states and work actively with
our State Geographic Alliances (co-sponsored by NGS and PDE in PA) to train
teachers. I took that charge very
seriously and not only improved the way I taught geography, but became an active
member of the Pennsylvania Geographic Alliance facilitating summer institutes
and workshops until I retired in 2001.
As I reflect on my years of teaching, I realize that learning new things,
being open to new opportunities and being flexible completely changed my career
in education. Together these
qualities made me a better teacher and enriched my life.
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My
First Year of Teaching
I walked into some nontraditional homes. Some homes had no furniture.
There were just mattresses thrown around. And they smelled of urine. One home I
suspected was a house of prostitution. You could cut through the smoke. There
was a baby in a cardboard box for a crib. There were women everywhere. Did they
welcome me? At first, they did not. Then, I started to send notes home with the
date and time I would visit. Now, when I arrived at the designated home
everything was clean and smelled of the odor of Clorox.
People began to welcome me as a teacher who cared about their children.
It was slow, but my style was working.
I remember the first time I was asked to go to lunch with some of the
teachers how significant a sense of humor was. We went to a luncheonette in the
neighborhood. I had a sandwich and a cup of coffee. A bug was floating in the
coffee. I brought it to the attention of the waitress, and she told me. “Now
we will have to charge you for soup.” I laughed because it was funny.
I now realized that was how people here faced their poverty. They did it
with a sense of humor. I taught with that trait, and it worked.
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So,
Why Did You Become a Teacher?
On certain memorable occasions, a school newspaper reporter or the
moderator of an educational panel has asked me, “So why did you become a
teacher?” I never knew what to say because I didn’t want to give a detailed
answer that revealed more than I was comfortable saying about myself nor did I
want to be flip. The truth is that I drifted into it. I came from rural Mercer
County where everyone my family knew was either a farmer or a factory worker. I
didn’t want to be either, and the only professional role models I had were
teachers and preachers. I was too cynical to make my way to the pulpit, and too
good a student not to want more education. Besides teachers, I was told in the
early 1960s, would always have a job. …
Teachers of my generation, for the most part, accepted that teaching was
hard work with little monetary reward. In fact, an older colleague of mine gave
me pep talks during my first year of teaching in Beaver Fall, PA. She said a
teacher was a domestic missionary carrying education and hope to those most in
need of it. I tried to make my career reflected that. Remember, this was the era
of John F. Kennedy. Many young people sincerely believed in his idealism: “Ask
not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
Students flocked to join the Peace Corps, and a little later VISTA.
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Variety
is the Spice of Life
I had a mentor who was
African-American. She referred to herself as “colored”. I made calls
inquiring about house rentals for her family. It was my first experience with
finding prejudice. Our school population was about 20% African-American, 80%
Caucasian and a 10% overall population in deep poverty. I still remember one
mother coming to a PTA meeting barefoot. Several students said “gravy bread”
was one of their favorite meals. We still had corporal punishment but had to
have another teacher as a witness. I taught three years in Urbana and then went
to Yokohama, Japan with my husband who wanted to attend an international
university in Tokyo.
Over the next three years, I
taught kindergarten, second grade, and third grade at Yokohama International
School (YIS). In my first year there I had 18 students in my class, with 13
nationalities represented. We lived in Japanese housing next to a Swedish family
who adopted us into their Scandinavian community. While living in Japan, I
started an afternoon pre-school at YIS, made an American folk song record,
taught English on public service television for three months, and privately
taught English to school children and businessmen. I immersed myself into the
Japanese culture. I learned Ichibana, the Japanese alphabet, read Japanese
literature and participated in many green tea ceremonies. I traveled to places
in Japan that made me feel like I had gone back 100 years in time.
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Dreaming a Dream -
Experiencing that Dream
My dream began in 1945 when I entered the door of a cozy one-room
schoolhouse in Lancaster County, PA, just before I turned six years old. I loved
having access to the books and their smell, the chalk that gave off a powdery
dust when I wrote on the black
board,
the wooden floors that smelled of oil, and a desk that was all my own. I dreamed
of becoming a teacher. One day as I stood at the front of the room reading aloud
with my class, I fainted from the fumes from the old coal stove. That event
became a cloud that hung over me every time I spoke in front of my class - I now
had a phobia about public speaking. These fears grew when I fainted on two more
occasions - once in front of my class in eighth grade and again in speech class
in college.
A much larger cloud loomed following a conversation with my mother in my
senior year of high school in 1956. After receiving a catalogue from
Millersville State College, I ran to her so excited to talk about entering
college that fall. She said, “No, there is no money for you to go to college.
If anyone goes to college, it will be your brother. It is more important for a
boy to go.” My dream was ended with her words - which were final.
Not long after that, I married my high school sweetheart, Randy. He
earned two scholarships to cover tuition at Franklin and Marshall College - one
a work scholarship. To supplement our living expenses, I worked in the sales
department at the US Asbestos plant in Manheim. In seven years Randy had his
degree, and we had two children. Randy revived my dream when he said, “Now it
is your turn to go to college”. …. I was hired at Stiegel Elementary in my
hometown and began teaching first grade in 1976. As I walked to school the first
day, I could hardly believe I was "living the dream” of so many years. I
remember thinking I would have paid the district for the chance to be teaching.
Soon enough I knew I was earning the $8000 dollar salary I was paid.
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