Recently I was looking in the family geneology book and found something my brother had sent to me re: the death of our grandfather. It was a copy from the Elizabethtown News, for Feb. 23, 1922. The cause of his death was pneumonia and he died in Louisville, Ky. The article was about his professional life. This sentence caught my attention "Possibly no teacher ever taught a greater number of pupils than he". It also states that for many years he had charge of a school in Texas during the war between the states. I would love to know more about that !!
The article states that he came "home" soon after the war was over and established Gilead Institute at Canmer, Ky. In 1879 he left there and went to Hodgenville, along with two other educators and apparently furthered the cause of education. He later "had control of Magnolia College and Upton Institute". My father was born at Upton. As a little boy he had a paper route in Horse Cave and would meet the train each day to get the papers which were thrown from the train. I am not sure but I sense that the train did not stop as it passed through.
I am inspired by this statement from the article "No matter how poor and uninviting in appearance or how obscure and lowly their parentage, no young man or young woman applying to him for entrance to his school was ever turned away. "his work was to build," and right well did he do it".
This statement also inspired me, "He knew that the best teacher is he who can inspire the pupil to do his best always".
Taking a quick glance back at my career in teaching, the times I remember best are those incidents which leave me with the feeling that I inspired my students to feel good about what they were doing and accomplishing.
One incident I remember took place in a first grade class in Severna Park, Maryland. I was presenting the concept of place value, using tens and ones. I was using little bundles of tooth picks secured with rubber bands. Each bundle had ten tooth picks. I gave each student ten toothpicks and had them count and bundle them to plant the idea of ten ones into their minds. Then I would add one toothpick -or more - to their desk and ask them to count how many they had in all. This went on for several days in Math class. Everyone was "getting it" except for one little boy. I would go by his desk as I circulated and give him help as needed . He dutifully carried out my instructions until one day as I stood at his desk watching him, he looked up at me with wonder in his eyes and said " NOW I know what you are talking about".
Since that time place value is taught with centimenter blocks using color coded blocks which would snap together. That technique is probably safer as today the points of the tooth picks would probably be consider a "lethal weapon". Of course since I retired from teaching in 1991 some other system may now be used to convey the basic idea of place value to young children.
Another "Aha" moment came in reading. We were using a pure phonetic approach and the student book pages had short words using the sound we were emphazing at that lesson. I would have a presentation using color coded chalk as a visual reminder. I used a great little blackboard which I could easily move about in our little reading circle. One little boy named Robert, cute as a button and sharp as a tack, did not want to try to say the words in his book. I did not press him at all. The other children understood Robert did not want to participate so they just passed him and did their part each day. Robert was attentive and listened. This went on for several weeks and one day as each child took his turn saying the words, something different happened. When the child before Robert had finished, Robert just started reading, perfectly !!!! He had just not been ready to give it a try. No doubt in his mind he had been reading all along but did not trust saying it out loud.
I remember Robert for another reason. He told his mother that what he liked about Mrs. Parsons was that she would give you a second chance. Robert had the most disorganized desk I had ever seen. Papers would be all over the place, books, pencils just scattered all about. He went through that entire year, learning everything perfectly but never could learn to keep a neat desk !!!
There are many stories in my mind about my students over my years in the classroom, but this is enough for one day. I am sure I will revisit the theme as those days are an integral part of me.
I just wish I could hear some of the stories that my grandfather could tell about his students, especially during the war between the states.
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