Shakespeare’s next stage of life pictures a justice measuring out wise moral stories with severe eyes. I certainly find some parallels since my career of teaching involved giving of advice and encouraging right actions through the Aesopian stories I told. My students also took immediate warning notice when my left eyebrow rose.
One might argue that my career began before my husband left the Army since I taught school during those days. But teaching GED classes to soldiers in New York and France, kindergarten in San Antonio, and second grade in Kaiserslautern, West Germany would last no longer than his military assignment. I expected the same when I began teaching second grade at Fort Polk in Louisiana, but Al decided to retire five years into that tour. He said, “It’s your turn to get to keep your job. I will look for work here.” (As luck would have it, he became a rural mail carrier – a job he aspired to as a kid!)
After another seven years in second grade, I needed a new challenge. With gifted certification in my pocket, I took on the gifted and honors language arts classes at Leesville Junior High School. My principal’s only requirement was to use the same text as the rest of the language arts classes, making no restriction on which parts I used or what I brought in as supplements. Since it was a good text of classics and modern literature, I was in business. The students furnished my needed challenge – every single day!
My favorite part of any class no matter what the students’ age, and probably theirs, was our daily read aloud time – The Snowy Day for San Antonio kindergarteners who had never seen snow, All-of-a-Kind-Family with a Jewish New York family at the turn of the century for second graders, and the Gilbreth family in Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their Toes for my junior high students. You can look up the many educational reasons for reading aloud. My primary one was building a bond with my students with a shared body of work. For instance, there was Mr. Gilbreth’s rule of the dining table where the family of eleven children must carry on conversation “of general interest.” Under his rule, news happenings in far-flung places was of general interest but not the cute new boy who turned up at the high school. With this common connection, when my students tried to take the class conversation on a rabbit chase, I reminded them that the winner of Friday night’s ball game was not of general interest whereas misplaced modifiers were vital to us all. Their laughter and groans got us right back on task. In an extra bonus, one student became enamored with the work of the two Gilbreth motion study scientists. I got a message ten years ago saying she had acquired first editions of both books and had studied their work, especially Lilly Gilbreth’s Psychology of Management book.
In the end, my junior high students and I formed a reading and writing community. I joined them in writing, sharing, and critiquing the creative writing assignments I gave (not the research papers). Several of my writings from that time have been published. One is the “Who Am I?” found on my website. I credit that group of readers and writers with encouraging me to enter the season of life that will be in this space next week.