Teaching is in my blood, and I guess I always knew I would grow up to be a school teacher someday, but by the time I got to High School the last thing in the world I wanted to do was spend the rest of my life in school.
Dad was a teacher and he was good at it. His mom, my Grandma Russell, was also a teacher until she got married and stayed home to raise a family. For a little while when I was young I wanted to be a nurse, but I think every little girl who grew up in the late 50's and 60's wanted to do that. I got a nurse doll and costume for Christmas one year, and it really cute, but by the time I was in 2nd grade I knew I wanted to be a school teacher. Once I hit 4th grade I knew that was the grade I wanted to teach. To my mind, 4th grade was the perfect year. The kids had already learned to read and write so the teaching part was easy, but they weren't so old that they thought they knew everything and had attitudes, like the 5th and 6th graders. Plus,you got to teach Arizona history in fourth grade.
We took an aptitude test during my senior year in high school that was supposed to give us direction and help steer us into careers that we would enjoy. I wasn't surprised at my results, at least not the half that showed what I would do well in if I was a female , which of course I was. Those results pointed conclusively towards teaching young children. The only surprising part of my test were the results for if I was a male. They showed I would do well as an FBI agent. Weird, huh?
I was thrilled to think I might have an affinity for detective work, but I suspected the results were skewed because I read so many mystery novels. Alas, I wasn't a boy, so it looked like I was destined be a school teacher, although I toyed with the idea of teaching as my front and being a secret agent behind the scenes, but I knew in my heart that wasn't going to work. Still, it made fun daydreams.
My senior year in high school I had the opportunity to be a teachers aid at an elementary school during the afternoons. That sounded like more fun than sitting in class and taking tests all year, and everyone assured me the experience would be beneficial if I was going to be a teacher, so I signed up for the program.
This was during the gasoline crises of the early 70's. Gas prices had skyrocketed, although compared to today gas was still amazingly cheap. The worst part about the crisis was getting the gas. It was actually rationed for awhile, so we could only go to the gas station on certain days of the week, and then the lines were super long and sometimes they would run out before we even got to our turn to fill up. It was a mess! Consequently, mom and dad tried to limit the amount of driving we did.
Dad started riding his bike to work, he even got his picture in the newspaper as an example of someone who was doing his part to help our community, and he thought it would be a good idea if I rode a bike as well. I had always walked to elementary and junior high school, they were both less than a mile away, but the high school was over four miles from our house. There wasn't time to walk that far in the mornings so mom drove me, then I walked home in the afternoon. I didn't mind since the hour it took to walk was an hour I could spend reading. It only took 15 or 20 minutes to ride a bike, though, and then mom didn't have to drive me at all, but I couldn't figure out a way to read while I rode. I tried, but even though I could hold the book on the handle bars, I was going too fast to take my eyes off the road without running into stuff. Darn.
So, I rode my bike to school in the mornings, went to four classes, then rode my home, ate a quick lunch, then went to the elementary school to spend the afternoon being an aid. It was a lot of fun. I helped in second and fourth grade, and determined I had been right about fourth grade being the easiest year to teach. Second graders, while cute, were a pain, and having to teach reading and spelling to kids who didn't understand was hard. By fourth grade the kids knew the basics, and we just had fun.
Mostly I graded papers and made copies for the teachers, but sometimes I listened to kids read or answered questions. I also had a chance to watch how different teachers taught, and to decide what kind of a teacher I wanted to be.
There were four 2nd grade classes that I helped in, spending one day a week in each class. Two of the teachers were pretty ordinary, but the other two were so opposite it was interesting. At the beginning of the year I really liked the first teacher, she was all smiles and giggles and sweet with her kids. She worked hard to be their best friend and made very few rules in her classroom; she and the kids just had fun. The other teacher was so strict I felt sorry for her students. She rarely smiled, the class was always super quiet and the kids were expected to sit at their desks and do their work without any visiting.
By the middle of the year, though, my perception of these two rooms changed drastically. The first happy-go-lucky teacher was really struggling with her class. They were loud and unruly, seldom on task or doing what they were supposed to be doing. The teacher had very little control of her kids and the only way she could get them to do what she wanted was to yell. It seemed that her voice was raised almost all of the time, and I really didn't like being in her classroom. The other strict teacher, though, never raised her voice. Her classroom was always quiet, the kids were always on task, and although she wasn't always smiling and laughing there was a peaceful, calm feeling in her room that was really nice. I learned during that year that I wanted to be that kind of a teacher, not necessarily my student’s best friend, but someone they could trust, respect, and rely on.
Not that I was really looking forward to becoming a teacher yet. I still didn't like the idea of going to four more years of school after I graduated, although I recognized it was a necessary evil I was going to probably have to endure. Still, I dreamed of becoming a secret agent instead. I just didn't know how to do it.
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