I Am a Teacher

During my life a lot of people have identified me as a Mason. I wear the pins (and belt buckle) and attend a lot of Masonic meetings (105 so far this year) but I identify myself as a TEACHER.

I think I have always wanted to be a teacher. The people I admired the most in my life have been teachers. I had the greatest grade school teachers. You can read about some of them here.

I mentioned Miss Steele and her lesson about where a gentleman should walk in the blog entry about the OES visit. My mother always thought that she was strict but I loved her.

My great aunt Avis Cole taught for 40 years at Roosevelt Elementary School (where I also taught) and my great aunt Erma Simser was a teacher/librarian in Whittier California.

When I was in high school there were some kids who were having trouble with school. I volunteered to tutor them. Later after not quite making it in College I decided to work for a year or so to decide on what I wanted to do. While I was carrying stuffed animals up and down stairs I was asked to teach a Sunday School class at First United Methodist Church. The lady who asked me was the youth minister, Verda Aegeter, she was a great person.

I remember that the curriculum book told me that I was supposed to teach the students lessons about how to take a pie or cake to the neighbor who had just had a death in the family. I decided that it would be more interesting if we studied something else so we studied the Jewish religion. After all, Jesus was Jewish and he never repudiated the religion.

It was during that time that I decided I wanted to be a teacher. So it was off to State College of Iowa (now the University of Northern Iowa) to get the training and degree.

I started out to be a social studies teacher but Bernice Lamb got a hold of me and told me that I should switch to Elementary Education. She told me that children grew up without male influences in their lives. They spent all day with their mothers and female teachers and needed to see male role models. I have never been sorry that I switched.

I have never been any great shakes as a student (until later in life) but I got two "A's" as my grade in student teaching. I think that says something.

Sidelight - The mother of one of the guys in our Lodge who was at coffee this morning had a mother who was a teacher. She wasn't my cooperating teacher but she taught the grade right before me in the school in Charles City where I did my student teaching. (small world)

After I graduated I got a job at Linn-Mar schools in Marion, Iowa. I loved living in Cedar Rapids and my experience at Linn-Mar was great.

I moved back to Ames because my mother and sister sort of needed me around and it was good to be with them and to be in Ames. I taught in Ames for 34 years. Over those thirty four years I taught in four different schools. I had about 8 different principals and worked with hundreds of students.

The profession was a good fit for me. I love helping people to learn and as the logo above shows I learn by teaching. Seeing a child who struggles take a hold of learning and begin to grow is a treasure which is beyond price.

One student (I am sure I have mentioned him before) had never read a book until he got into my class room. By the time he left he was reading constantly. I have lost touch with him but until he went to college I used to run into him and we would always have books to discuss. He is not the only one I remember but he stands out because he had never read a book before he got into sixth grade. I find that incredible.

One of my friends put the following as a comment on one of the blog postings

So why did the Ames school district abandon the "good" reading program? Could it be because they didn't have enough teachers like Jay who appreciated books and who had the ability and the energy to put forth the work required to actually teach?

Or did they just have a bunch of folks with a certificate that said they were teachers. I am a product of the US educational system, and while public education is a wonderful thing, it has often fallen vastly short of expectations. And a large part of that is because our current system does not encourage teachers to actually teach, to ask the hard questions.

It got me to thinking (aside from the compliment) about the people with whom I have taught. I was at the Iowa Caucus one time (the only time I ever attended a caucus and it was even on C-Span) and I was putting forth a resolution about Education Association for the ISEA and someone asked me "What do we do about the bad teachers?" Well I responded that I could count on the fingers on one hand the number of "bad" teachers that I had encountered. At that time the "bad teachers" were the ones the conservative religious right were attacking (they have since moved on to the gays) in order to mobilize their people.

In thinking about it and in light of the comment above I will say that I have worked with a lot of great teachers in the Ames Schools (only about three great principals) and a few mediocre teachers. That is too bad. They should all be great teachers. Teachers should be the best in our society as they are the ones responsible for the future of our society.

I think that one of the great tragedies of America today is that the politicians and the religious right and the "business round table" discovered that they could use education to mobilize their base and have passed legislation such as the "No Child Left Behind Act" which has done more harm to the educational system than any other legislation in my memory. Not that something doesn't need to be done to improve education but that certainly isn't it.

The Ames Schools had a program to improve instruction in the nineties. They brought in nationally known educators to work with us in learning new methods of teaching and in giving us the gift of more tools to put in our "bag" of tools to help in meeting students needs. Not everyone appreciated this but I learned from it and was glad for the opportunity to grow. Teachers should never stop learning.

In some ways teaching in Ames is not very realistic compared to other places. We generally had good buildings and plenty of resources. We had a good support system and opportunities to grow. Most important we had supportive parents (a must) and intelligent students. Not all schools are like that. I found a blog written by a 38 year old man in Maryland. It is called Blog-Sothoth and when I read his blog and the (quite frankly) horror stories about his teaching experience I do not understand how he can continue to teach in that school. Go look - it will amaze you.

I learned more from my students than I was ever able to teach them. But I did teach them. One of the greatest compliments I ever had was reported to me by a student. Her brother (who was then in the Middle School) told her "once you've had Simser, the Middle School is a snap." I don't know if he meant it as a compliment or not but I took it that way.

I still enjoy helping people and teaching. I sometimes help people who don't want help and then I worry about it but I think it is part of my nature. There are a lot of teachers who are better than I am but I am proud that I was a teacher and one of the things I am proudest of was that I was named to Who's Who in American Education - twice and was also a Sam's Club Teacher of the Year. (That got the school a $500.00 check).

Teaching is the greatest profession in the world and I am extremely grateful that my life path led me to become a TEACHER!

Hugs to all, j