( As I indicated last week,) I am in a family of three generations of teachers. After not teaching for 11 or 12 years my mother was more than surprised when she was approached by members of a local rural school board requesting she finish the rest of the year at their school as their teacher. I said her initial answer was no, she couldn’t but the board members didn’t take no for a final answer. They found my dad working in a field and asked him to convince mother of their desperation. That night when he came in from the field he and mother had a long discussion with him eventually convincing mom, that saying yes was the thing to do.
That meant a trip to the county superintendent’s office to check on emergency credentials, which then led to a change in our daily routine at home for my sister and I as well as dad. She was experienced to say the least having taught in a one room and then a two room rural school. Had even had an angry parent put under what they called “Peace Bond” for threatening her and the other teacher with a shot gun. Yes, she was experienced!
She learned that the former teacher had no student control. Kids had climbed a tree in the school yard and the teacher supposedly taught them by standing under the tree and looking up at them. When she couldn’t find some of the school books, she found them in the coal house. Things were a mess to say the least. Would any of these kids be able to pass to the next grade?
She started by giving a talk to the students, laying out what would need to be done in a very short time. Just over six weeks I think. She told them they had had a very long “vacation” and now it would be work, and hard study. Lots of homework! No recess, no leaving the school grounds to go to town and more. They knew she meant what she said.
The second afternoon, as she left school, a school board member stopped her and asked what she had threatened the students with since they were all staying inside and no outside activity. She told the woman she had merely laid out the situation and if they didn’t want to take the year over, it meant work and they were willing. She never threatened them. She just stated the facts. There weren’t a lot of students but they were spread through several grades. Mom said most passed to the next grade with the exception of maybe three who had to take summer classes. One boy was in the 8th grade and he passed the county exam, thus graduating and ready for high school. Some forty years later that young man told me that he only had my mom for a few weeks but she was the best teacher he ever had. I took that as a very good, appreciative comment.
In another year or so, due to a petition at a local 12 year school, she became their first kindergarten teacher, then went on to teach fourth grade before becoming the first grade teacher. I asked her a few years before she passed away, why she went from fourth to first grade and she said, “because too many in the fourth grade couldn’t read and getting reading basics is a must in first grade.” She taught first grade until she retired.
