by Pa Rock
Retired Teacher
Yesterday just as I was getting settled down at my typing spot in front of the living room window, a vehicle that I didn't recognize pulled into the driveway. When the shiny black truck came to a stop, a nice looking man got out and walked to the front door. He was smiling, and this old pessimist assumed that the visitor was going to try and sell him something.
Rosie and I went to the door, but before I could cough up any sort of greeting, the visitor told me who he was.
Our guest, Marty, had been one of my high school students from more that forty years ago, and he and his family had lived across the street from us. Today he lives a couple of hours from here and is getting close to retirement himself. As we sat in the living room and talked, decades quietly and quickly slipped away.
I signed my first teaching contract forty-two years ago for a whopping $7,200 per year. Fortunately, my wife at the time signed an equally valuable contract, and we - and our two children - were able to survive (barely) on that modest pay. By the time the school year started that fall, the school board had somehow come up with extra money and the salary for beginning teachers was bumped to $7,600 - an amount that paid our rent, groceries, and child care, if we were careful. We had a third child while teaching at Mountain View-Birch Tree, and it was our young neighbor, Marty, who came to the local hospital and took the first official photos of Baby Tim.
By the time we left Mountain View-Birch Tree Schools six years later, I had been promoted to high school principal and was knocking down almost $30,000 a year!
Mountain View-Birch Tree was one of the poorer school districts in the state, but it was a great place to work. School districts then, as now, paid teachers on salary schedules that increased pay according to the amount of experience that a teacher had - a situation that made it cheaper and more cost-effective to hire new teachers or those who had little classroom experience. Consequently our large rural junior and senior high school had a relatively young staff - dedicated teachers who didn't shy away from the notion of trying to make education interesting and challenging for their students.
I have always felt that I benefited from getting my start as an educator in a place like Mountain View-Birch Tree with its young and aggressive teaching staff, and that feeling is confirmed each time that I have the pleasure of visiting with students from those early days, like Marty, when they stop by to say "hi" and pass along some of their better memories from high school.
Teachers weren't paid much forty years ago, and they aren't paid much today. There is, however, a lot of personal satisfaction generated from sharing knowledge and a curiosity about life with students. Teachers touch lives - and every now and then some thoughtful student wanders back and lets them know that they are still remembered.
Marty's visit made my day!
Retired Teacher
Yesterday just as I was getting settled down at my typing spot in front of the living room window, a vehicle that I didn't recognize pulled into the driveway. When the shiny black truck came to a stop, a nice looking man got out and walked to the front door. He was smiling, and this old pessimist assumed that the visitor was going to try and sell him something.
Rosie and I went to the door, but before I could cough up any sort of greeting, the visitor told me who he was.
Our guest, Marty, had been one of my high school students from more that forty years ago, and he and his family had lived across the street from us. Today he lives a couple of hours from here and is getting close to retirement himself. As we sat in the living room and talked, decades quietly and quickly slipped away.
I signed my first teaching contract forty-two years ago for a whopping $7,200 per year. Fortunately, my wife at the time signed an equally valuable contract, and we - and our two children - were able to survive (barely) on that modest pay. By the time the school year started that fall, the school board had somehow come up with extra money and the salary for beginning teachers was bumped to $7,600 - an amount that paid our rent, groceries, and child care, if we were careful. We had a third child while teaching at Mountain View-Birch Tree, and it was our young neighbor, Marty, who came to the local hospital and took the first official photos of Baby Tim.
By the time we left Mountain View-Birch Tree Schools six years later, I had been promoted to high school principal and was knocking down almost $30,000 a year!
Mountain View-Birch Tree was one of the poorer school districts in the state, but it was a great place to work. School districts then, as now, paid teachers on salary schedules that increased pay according to the amount of experience that a teacher had - a situation that made it cheaper and more cost-effective to hire new teachers or those who had little classroom experience. Consequently our large rural junior and senior high school had a relatively young staff - dedicated teachers who didn't shy away from the notion of trying to make education interesting and challenging for their students.
I have always felt that I benefited from getting my start as an educator in a place like Mountain View-Birch Tree with its young and aggressive teaching staff, and that feeling is confirmed each time that I have the pleasure of visiting with students from those early days, like Marty, when they stop by to say "hi" and pass along some of their better memories from high school.
Teachers weren't paid much forty years ago, and they aren't paid much today. There is, however, a lot of personal satisfaction generated from sharing knowledge and a curiosity about life with students. Teachers touch lives - and every now and then some thoughtful student wanders back and lets them know that they are still remembered.
Marty's visit made my day!
2 comments:
A nice happening to read about. You did not only raise your small three kids but you took in us foreign exchange students from abroad. It was not something many poeple could do even including fascinating teachers in that school.
Rocky, visiting you made MY day! You are a friend I will never forget. I will always love for your kindness to me as an outsider new to the Ozarks in 1977.
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