All in a Day’s …
Early in the twentieth century, at age nineteen, my grandmother’s first job after completing Normal School in Portland was teaching in a one-room schoolhouse in Maine’s Piscataquis County. Late in the twentieth century, when she had long been retired, I spent summers with her and asked as many questions as she could tolerate. Some teachers are better than others coping with a steady stream of questions, and she could have a long pause in the questioning if she answered with a story.
Her stories caused me to decide teaching would be an adventurous career. Anything could happen any day with a room full of students. Surprises in interactions, interruptions, intentions, inventions, and implementations arose every day except in the summer when the cherubs had their summer vacation. I wanted a career that had a myriad of possibilities for variety.
Often, my Grandmere would turn to question me after telling most of a story — “Now, what would you do?”
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One summer day, when a draft horse on Grandmere and Grandpere’s farm stepped on my foot, nothing broke, but the foot hurt. I went inside the house to soak my foot or put ice on it. Grandmere told me a story from one of her first deep winter days as a teacher in the isolated location of her small schoolhouse. I felt horrified by her story of a boy who came into school with frostbitten toes. Many of her students in this remote location and year of 1916 did not have the warm clothing and shoes they should have.
The little toe, totally discolored, on one foot hung by a thread of skin when a young student worked to remove his shoes and socks. His foot hurt so much he had to see it and touch it. “What would you do when the shocked and crying child called you over?” Grandmere asked.
Only one other situation from her early teaching experiences shocked me as much. That’s a story for another day. I grew up feeling amazed at the situations that all came in a day’s work for her as a teacher. There were no other teachers, administrators, aides, or parents near the schoolhouse. Then and now, I feel amazed at what we teachers might encounter on any day. Do you?
The present school year is drawing to a close, but learning should never stop. How will you learn this summer? Who will you encourage in activities that will build knowledge and power in mind, body, and spirit? Are there projects to do that will help young people to learn empathy, compassion, and giving?
“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” Aristotle
