As previously stated with joy, no school for the next two days. In New Jersey, we get two days off every November to attend the state teachers' convention. At some point in the past, people probably did go. Now, only the people who are active in the union itself -- oh excuse me, the association, we're professionals, baby -- go. I went myself a few times before the girls were born. That would be before there was gambling in Atlantic City! (Well, there was gambling the last time I went; it had just been legalized.) It was dullsville. Not only was it too cold for the diving horse, it was too late for Miss America, Lucy the Elephant was closed, and anyway, they really never had a single thing, either an exhibit or workshop, for high school librarians. So I've skipped it all these years, as most of us do. I suppose it's really just a tribute to the power of organized labor. As well as the changes over the years in what it means to be a teacher.
My Aunt Rose, I've probably mentioned before, was a teacher, in the small town in Massachusetts where she and my father and their sister were raised. Aunt Rose graduated from high school in 1927 -- I have her class ring -- and then went off to Normal School for a couple of years, the way teachers were trained back then. Well, male high school teachers probably went to college, but send a girl to college? To my grandfather that was the height of absurdity. Normal School was fine. His daughters could be teachers or secretaries, at least until they got married. His son, of course, was destined for Harvard. But that's another story.
So there she was, straight A Rose, with a Normal School certificate in hand, and the Depression sweeping the country. She got her first job in a two-room schoolhouse. What, we wonder, was her salary that first year?
It was zero. Nothing. Her father had to pay someone a $1000 bribe just to get her the job. The next year, I believe, she earned $400.
She taught for 43 years, most of it third grade. She didn't marry until her early forties, so she lived at home most of that time. What would she need money for, then? Why bother to pay these women teachers a living wage when they were going to be living at home anyway, or getting married?
Imagine, 43 years, teaching in the same town. She taught generations in some families. And before she retired, when I had already started teaching, we would talk sometimes, and all those new methods, boy, she knew them. Maybe she didn't know the new names, and maybe she'd been teaching for years before any kid was classified, or gifted. She knew they were kids, and that each one was different, and that you had to teach each one the way they could learn. That's it. I'm not saying she was all warm and fuzzy and everybody's favorite teacher. She was shy, and reserved, and her students probably thought she was scary until they got to know her. But then at least grandmothers could say to their grandchildren, "Oh yeah, Mrs . B -- I was scared of her too, when she was Miss S and I was in her class."
So, convention. Roll those dice.
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I'm watching The Nanny
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