My Teaching Career
I am writing about my teaching career
because I want to have a record of my memories of my career. As I get older it
is getting harder and harder to remember things and facts. Just today I had to
ask Pat how old I am going to be this next month. I think he lied to me when he told me 62. Physically I feel in great shape this week,
not sure about next week. I do worry
about my brain 10 years from now, so now I will have a record to read and say I
was a teacher if someone in my nursing home asks. I feel that I would never have been able to
have a more exciting rewarding career as a teacher. Sure it was a lot of hard work and stress but
so worth it. I still am in communication
with former teachers, staff, and students. Hi Julie G and Jen O, I know you
will be reading this. Keep reading since
I may mention you again later. I was
going to list other past students that may also follow my blog but chose not to
for fear I might leave someone out. I
did promise Julie G. that I would mention her BFF Liz V who was one of my
students also. Hi Liz V.
I
retired from public school teaching back in May 8, 2013. My last day of teaching for Millard was
1-24-12. I took a year off to try to get
better after the stroke, but decided to retire that year. I would have been a special needs teacher
teaching special needs young adults. Plus that whole transportation issue of
getting to school and to the job sites, since I could no longer drive. I still have trouble with that issue. The law allows the deaf to drive but not the
blind. What is up with that;
discrimination against the blind? I had a blind teacher in high school and he
did fine. I did what my family wanted
and retired. Pat really wanted to
travel, so he bought an RV so we can travel the country. Sure he has to describe the sights to me,
such as look at that whale tail or the moose along the road. My mind sees them but not my eyes it is very
hard to explain how that works.
When I retired, Millard Public gave me a
clock and a free dinner for myself and Pat. I love free dinners. I also got a pass to get into Millard sporting
events. They were boring back in the day
when I watched the girls play, so they would even be more boring today. I am
still teaching, so only retired from paid teaching. I get to sub for my daughter Julie as I help
teach my four grandkids since they are homeschooled. Even if they were in public school, I would
still be teaching them.
Grandma teaching
I am going to write this in sections and
start with the end of my teaching experiences as a grandma in 6/2014. I love this part of my teaching career the
best. Yes, I still wrote out lesson
plans when I had them for a week. I did
my plans plus Julie’s. One day Jocelyn
said, “Grandma, we usually don’t work on school this long.” It was then time for her favorite subject of
all-ART. So it was ok to put in a really
long day. We spent some of that day
cleaning up the huge mess that they made while working on a science/art project
that involved flour and a flour fight.
Picture a food fight but with flour.
Did not realize how hard it is to clean flour from the cracks and
crevices of a wood floor, but not as bad as getting glitter out of carpet. I made that mistake years ago. We could get away with this mess because the
principal Grandpa was working. He could
not yell at us for the mess. It all
started when the teacher got a phone call and had left the room. When I arrived back in the classroom/kitchen,
the two littlest in the class now had white hair and clothes. All I could do was smile and say, “Don’t try
this at home with mom. “ Maybe I yelled a little at the girls for not watching
the little ones. As we all cleaned the
mess, I just kept thinking memories and was glad Pat was working that day. Katelyn tried to clean with a rag with too
much water which turned the flour into a paste/glue mess. That was a science lesson in itself. The boys had an early bath that day.
Last
month I got to spend the week with my grandkids in Grand Island. I was able to teach Easton how to crack an
egg as we made an egg dish for lunch. He
was so excited and did a super job. I
had to only pick a few shells out and wipe up two eggs that landed on the
countertop as he missed the cup. I read
an American Girl novel with the girls along with other books on subjects of
interest. We would each take turns reading
a few pages. We would discuss words that
they could pronounce but did not know the meaning. They boys enjoyed their reading times
also. I read the Sleepy Fairy maybe 6
times that week. We were able to discuss
how Fairies are not real and are only in books and on TV. Weston had to ask
about monsters and if they were real. I
had Easton read to me his reading books and we worked on his spelling
words. They all love learning. Katelyn loves spelling and math. Jocelyn is getting better at spelling. One vacation in the RV, while working on
spelling she would not work with me at all.
It was as if I was the sub teacher, and she was giving me the hardest
time. “Mommy doesn’t do it this
way.” That brought back memories of
subbing in the public schools. I will
discuss that later. One time Jocelyn was
trying to pump me for information about how babies are born. So I gave her the edited version, God made
the babies. Her reply was, “Grandma, I
know that” followed by more questions. I
continued to avoid the question with other facts she knew. I did not have a signed note from her parents
stating that she could participate in that decision in class today. I always did that when teaching on those
subjects. Parents needed to be informed
of all the subjects that their child was learning in school.
That means open lines of communication and newsletters, emails, and phone calls, etc.
That week when Julie had surgery, each of the kids took turns helping Grandma make something for lunch or dinner. Katelyn is good really good with cutting up fruits and vegetables for salads. The girls also have experience cooking and baking things when they visit my house. They love making deviled eggs and of course anything sweet. That week in Grand Island we spent a few days cleaning and organizing. I want to hope the girls and boys will remember the lessons they learned and will no longer stuff and hide toys, clutter, and trash but really clean and put things back where they belong. They seemed to enjoy cleaning since we found so many lost treasures that had be stuffed away and forgotten. Jocelyn so reminds me of how Angie cleaned back when she was little. Things stuffed in bags, hid under the bed, stuffed in closets or drawers. Angie grew out of that, so Jocelyn will to. Now Angie is a clean freak. She no longer stuffs Hostess sweet treat wrappers in the couch cushions or under the couch. If she would have just thrown the wrappers in the trash, I would never have known that she had taken them out of the downstairs freezer. I could go on and on about the joys of teaching as a grandma but you must be bored by now. Just be thankful I am not sharing with you a handful of pictures of my precious grandkids. You can check my daughters Facebook page or her blog for those pictures.
That means open lines of communication and newsletters, emails, and phone calls, etc.
That week when Julie had surgery, each of the kids took turns helping Grandma make something for lunch or dinner. Katelyn is good really good with cutting up fruits and vegetables for salads. The girls also have experience cooking and baking things when they visit my house. They love making deviled eggs and of course anything sweet. That week in Grand Island we spent a few days cleaning and organizing. I want to hope the girls and boys will remember the lessons they learned and will no longer stuff and hide toys, clutter, and trash but really clean and put things back where they belong. They seemed to enjoy cleaning since we found so many lost treasures that had be stuffed away and forgotten. Jocelyn so reminds me of how Angie cleaned back when she was little. Things stuffed in bags, hid under the bed, stuffed in closets or drawers. Angie grew out of that, so Jocelyn will to. Now Angie is a clean freak. She no longer stuffs Hostess sweet treat wrappers in the couch cushions or under the couch. If she would have just thrown the wrappers in the trash, I would never have known that she had taken them out of the downstairs freezer. I could go on and on about the joys of teaching as a grandma but you must be bored by now. Just be thankful I am not sharing with you a handful of pictures of my precious grandkids. You can check my daughters Facebook page or her blog for those pictures.
Motherhood
My teaching career with children began with
the birth of my oldest Angie on 3-3-77.
Sure I had taught adults as I worked before her birth at Thrifty Drug,
Mutual of Omaha, and Northwestern Bell.
A mother is the greatest teacher the child will ever have. I told that to many moms during parent
teacher conferences, and when I talked with parents as I sold reading and
teaching materials door to door. I
always started by sales pitch with, “ You are the number one teacher your child
will ever have.” They are with you ___
many hours vs ____ in the classroom. I
would then end up selling them- World Book products. I still have those products and use them with
the grandkids when teaching. I don’t
have to talk much about this because everyone knows how we parents do this. We
start the teaching the day they are born until the day we or they die. I just did some teaching to Angie during my
phone call with her today. I call it
teaching, while she might call it nagging.
I
am going to digress a little back to 1975 before Angie was born. I was married in 1974 and was sitting at my
desk before work started at Northwestern Bell. Big difference from school hours, I started
work at 8 and stopped at 4 and I had a real lunch break. Plus no homework! You heard that right a
lunch break eating and chatting with adults not one eating with the students
while supervising. I was waiting for the clock to strike 8, and thinking about
my life and where I was heading. I had
no goal of going to college, but just wanted to be a wife which I now was. I also wanted to be a mom. I started praying which was very odd back
then. I only thought prayer was for
church on Sundays. I did not know
anything about the Bible God’s word. I went to church out of fear that God
would strike me down if I missed mass and had a sin on my soul. My prayer started with, “God if you are really
up there and care about me, could you see about a better paying job for Pat. He’s
my husband in case you don’t know him. I really don’t want to spend my life working,
because I really want to be a mom, Amen.” At the time I was filling in entries
to win a dream home, so I added another prayer to that, please have my name
drawn to win this dream home. Pat called
right after that Amen. He was getting a
transfer from the police station to the Civic Auditorium. Big pay raise as he was going to be trained
to be an engineer for heating/boilers and air-conditioning etc. I then began to pray for the second time that
day and said, “God you are really up there and you do care about me. “ I then
picked up a tract called the Four Spiritual Laws that a coworker had left on
the desk. I read it and learned that
Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins, and rose from the dead -For by
grace you have been saved through faith, and that is not of yourselves; it is
the gift of God, not by works, least anyone should boast. Ephesians 2:8-9. I had been going to church and trying to be a
good person, but that is not the way it works.
It is a free gift of grace by faith. I now knew that I was going to
spend eternity in heaven. I was a sinner
saved by grace. I accepted His free gift and began to read
God’s Word and call upon Him many more times.
Soon
after that in July of 1975 I found I really need God’s help and peace after
being omitted to the hospital with massive stomach pains. I had waited too long at work with the pain
and had an ovarian cyst the size of a grapefruit rupture that had to be removed. I remember the doctor saying it was going to
be very difficult to get pregnant and to not wait to have children later in
life. I was reminded through God’s
Word that He is the giver of life. Angie was a gift of the Lord even if she was coming butt first, so I had to have a C section. Julie was born on 1-23-79 and was my second gift of motherhood from the Lord. Yes another C-section, but this time completely put out. Fast forward to the present and God continued His blessings with the four grandchildren, our dogs and grand dog. Yes I call myself mom and Pat dad to the dogs. I am old and can get away with that. I just asked Riley if daddy fed him yet? The grand dog is spending her vacation at grandma and grandpa’s house this week/month.
Word that He is the giver of life. Angie was a gift of the Lord even if she was coming butt first, so I had to have a C section. Julie was born on 1-23-79 and was my second gift of motherhood from the Lord. Yes another C-section, but this time completely put out. Fast forward to the present and God continued His blessings with the four grandchildren, our dogs and grand dog. Yes I call myself mom and Pat dad to the dogs. I am old and can get away with that. I just asked Riley if daddy fed him yet? The grand dog is spending her vacation at grandma and grandpa’s house this week/month.
Childcare
When the girls were growing up I always did
childcare for others to earn a little money.
Back then it was a little money. Some moms could not afford much, so I
did it for free or very little. I had
many different childcare children. Some
called me their summer mom, while others like one toddler kicked and screamed
when her mom came to pick her up. She
did not want to go home with her mom.
This was so hard on mom that she quit her job to spend more time with
her daughter. We had many babysitting
kids coming and going throughout the years.
A para that I had at the Young Adult Program husband came to school to
pick her up, and said that I used to babysit him. Sometimes moms would drop off
their children when they went to play golf or out for lunch at the country
club. Those moms I charged more. I would
also do weekend childcare when the moms went on business trips or vacations
with their husbands. We could then use
their backyard pools for something to do that was free.
The girls always had someone over to play
with. They even had boys that would play
Barbies with them. We had a huge
collection of Fisher price toys that the kids would set up in the basement and
play with. Julie always had someone to
play school with. She had a classroom
chalk board that she would decorate and post the date, lunch menu, lesson
plans, names of those who could not go out for recess or had to stay after
school. She grew up to be a high school teacher and now is a
preschool/elementary teacher to the grandkids.
Angie also went into the teaching field at Boystown and teaches adult
staff plus the sweethearts who have broken the law or other reasons who are
placed in her Washington DC site. She
also does all that other boring part of teaching called the paperwork that the
gov. and organizations need. They both followed in my steps and
each received their Master degrees. They
had to put up with all the childcare kids, but they learned patience through
those experiences. I do remember Julie
getting mad with one of the Carlson girls and as she was unloading the
dishwasher, she hit one of them over the head with a cookie sheet. Facebook allows me to keep track of some of
those kids that spent time at our house while their parents worked.
Teaching Pre School
When the girls were preschool age I taught
preschool at Learning Tree Christian Preschool at Millard Community Church. It was a paid job but not much. This gave me some extra spending money for
garage sales. I taught a few classes
under the direction of the director Carole Owen from 1983-86. I also taught various ages of Sunday school
classes and vacation Bible school classes.
I remember using a curriculum called Peter Panda. Peter Panda and his flannel board friends
taught Christian morals to the preschoolers.
Subjects like sharing, obeying your parents, kindness, etc. Years later, I loaned this curriculum to some
unknown person at this time, and they never returned it. I would love to be able to do the flannel
board stories with my grandkids. I also
taught summer school preschool for Millard SPED during the years of 90 and
91. I even had Julie come and help me
with the preschoolers. I taught some Head
Start and Chapter 1 preschool classes for OPS and having to drive to South
Omaha or Conestoga, in North Omaha, was not fun.
University Education
The summer of 1985 was another life event
that led me deep into teaching. We were
coming back from a camping trip to Disney World, and I was thinking about my
life and where I was heading. Julie was
going into kindergarten and what was I going to do with my life? I could go back and do office/computer work
like I did at Northwestern Bell, but then I would have to have childcare for
the girls. My last day of work for Northwestern Bell was the day before Angie
was born. In fact I missed my big going
away party that they were throwing me.
Question time: What town in Iowa was the first
computerized white pages directory that Northwestern Bell put out? How big was that computer, and do you know
how data was entered into the computer?
I worked on that project called “Direct Project”. Answers:
Mason City, huge the size of a room, and keypunch cards. This job paid overtime and I could work as
many hours that I wanted and boy did I work a lot of hours. Weekends even paid more. We were still living
off my savings that I had built up while working on this project, so we had
money to see Mickey and his Friends.
Maybe I could get a job in a bakery I thought,
and only work when the girls were in school, but then I would eat all the store
products and really gain weight. I could not do that since I was still carrying
around the weight gain from the girl’s births.
Carole Owen had been going to UNO and had encouraged me to take
classes. In the car coming back from
seeing Mickey I was fighting with my thoughts.
Go to school to be a teacher, no I would say! I can’t. Then I made excuses: like I am too
old, too much money, I am not smart enough, it would take me years, and I and
Angie would graduation the same year, she from high school and me from
college. It was just fear of the unknown;
we all have experienced this fear.
I
prayed about this major life change and was led to sign up for classes during
fall of 88 at UNO. I still did childcare
when not taking classes. I graduated
Dec. 88 with a Bachelor in Elementary Education with endorsements in Elementary
Ed and Early Childhood GPA of 3.838. Summer
of 91 back at UNO and May of 1995 graduated with a Master’s of Science Teaching
the Mentally Retarded with a Mild/Moderate endorsement GPA 4.000. Then I worked on a Specialist degree as a
school transition specialist at UNL from Spring 02 and completed it in 05. Continued to take classes but no more degrees
because that is what you have to do with your summers off when teaching.
I
remember telling UNL back in 05 that I was tired of going to school and did not
want to work on the next degree of Doctorate. I was looking forward to
retirement, and had no desire to teach at the University level. The professors that I had kept encouraging me
to go on, but I kept declining. They
really just wanted more money out of me.
I don’t even want to think about what it cost me for my so called
education just to get that piece of paper to do a job. It is just about as bad as thinking about the
price of gas today. Pat has been planning
some RV trips for this year, so I have been worrying about that. I need a rest break because my blood pressure
is going up just thinking about the cost of a college education and gas
prices. PS I never had to take out a
student loan, nor did we ever have to help our daughters with paying for their
educations. We may have only bought them
books when they were short on money for books, but only did that a couple of
times.
Substitute Teaching
I loved substitute teaching. I think I would still be a substitute teacher
in my retirement years if things would have been different. I started substitute teaching back in 1989,
as soon as I graduated. I signed up to
sub for Millard in the beginning, since I did my student teaching in K and 3rd
grade at Cody. I subbed in elementary to
begin with. I had a sub bag that I
carried. It was loaded with finger
plays, puppets(Amy the rabbit and Zac the monkey), and a couple of my favorite
books, songs on a cassette, along with other fun activities for the down time,
when we got finished with the teacher’s plan early. I became a popular sub for the younger
grades. For the upper grades we would do
word puzzles/plexers and try to solve mysteries. I had overheads that they would solve. One mystery that I still remember, “I shoot
people for my job, and my parents are happy about this career. What do I do?” Photographer. I also carried upper level
books to read to the older elementary students.
In
1990 I got a request from Westside schools to sub for them. They had called Millard requesting a sub for
a special education class that was located in a Millard school. Millard contracted with Westside to educate
special education students. The next
thing I knew was I was subbing even more now working for two districts. So then I figured why not sign up to sub for
OPS? I seemed to be working every day. I
found myself getting called for Special Education classrooms a lot. No one seemed to want to teach those
classes. I enjoyed them, and they always
had the greatest para educators to help with the changing, feeding, behavior
problems, routine, etc.
I first met a para named Sue Wolfe back in
one of those special education classrooms.
Many years later while at YAP (Young Adult Program) I sat in an
interview to hire her for our program.
And of course I insisted on hiring her.
Our special education classrooms would not function without the paras
help. Spending all that time subbing in
SPED rooms lead me to go on and get my Masters in SPED. That meant that I would have to student teach
and not sub. That would mean no extra garage sale money for
me to spend that year. I got a call from
Westside asking for me to do a long term at Swanson for a 2nd grade
teacher who had just found out that she had cancer. It was early in the school year of 1993, so
it was an easy transition for the students since they only had their teacher
for a few weeks.
I
first told Westside that I could not do this assignment since I was working on
student teaching for my Masters. They
worked things out with UNO to sub in that classroom. I would get paid plus do my student teaching
under the supervision of the other 2nd grade teacher. That school had assigned all the special
education students in 2nd grade to be in that class, since the
teacher with cancer was also getting her masters and was going to student teach
in her own classroom.
It
is amazing how things work out at times in one’s lifetime. That is when I said, “Thank you Lord.” I spent the whole year in that classroom, as
the teacher then went on to have a bone marrow transplant. She came in one morning to see everyone and
was crying and upset. The doctor told
her that she would never be able to have children. She had one son at the time. I shared with her how the doctor is not in charge
of opening her womb but God is. She
later was able to teach the following school year and had two more sons. Yes, God answers prayers. Sometimes with a no but in her case a yes.
Public School Teaching for Westside
After
that school year during the summer of 94, Westside called again and wanted me
to teach at Westside Middle School for a 7th and 8th
grade resource rooms. That was when I
prayed and asked God, “Why middle school?”
I still was working on my Masters but was to graduate in ’95. Westside worked on the paperwork from the
state to allow me to do that. That
summer along with the middle school sped director, I worked on writing my first
IEP (individualized education plan) for a blind student. That IEP turned out to
be 20 plus pages long. This was hand written.
We did not have computer programs for IEP’s like we do today. I also worked on many more that beginning of
the year, since all IEP’s had to be rewritten to match middle school goals.
I
had a good year. I liked working in
middle school, plus I was getting teacher pay not sub pay. I taught learning strategies to 7th
and 8th grade students. I was
told what to teach and when, so all I had to do was learn the curriculum and
then teach it. I again had two great
paras. One of my paras was was a guy who
would help me lift one of the students to the toilet twice a day. I can’t
remember if the school had lifts back then, but we did the two man lift with
him. The student was a big kid, who only
had a life expectancy of maybe ten more years. My back did go out right after
school ended that year. I had one
student that came to class with a full time nurse who took care of all his
needs. My para just had to take notes
for him. The blind student received help
from the district vision person. I
received a lot of direction from the middle school sped director. He later told me that he had learned
something from watching me teach and deal with the students. He said that he learned that one can
discipline with dignity from me. He was
a yeller and at times I would jump when he yelled at a student to sit up or
shut up.
That teaching assignment lasted only one
school year, due to the fact that Millard was not contracting with Westside
anymore to education the sped students. This meant that I got bumped from my job to
another teacher in the building that had more seniority. Then Westside sends me to Oakdale to teach 6th
grade. I taught there from 95 to
97. I had very bright students to some
very low sped students, which meant a lot of planning for the different
levels. I had all the major subjects to
teach plus then reaching all students.
This took some creative teaching along with a great time commitment. Some long, long days at school were
spent. I can remember looking at the
clock that said 9:00 pm and deciding I better get home. The grading took for ever since I tend to
want to comment on my students papers. I
also had to learn a grading system that meant grades were entered into the
computer. We also had to learn and use
the Boys Town Social Skills in the classroom. Since this was a “regular” ed
classroom, I had no para help with the sped students. I also had to buy my own extra teaching
supplies.
The teaching year of 96-97 was a strange
year. I had a parent that did not like
me, so she did a petition drive to end my teaching career with Westside. I did not realize that she hated me, and
thought we were getting along. Sure she
did not like my phone calls regarding her daughter’s behavior, or the time she
had to stay after due to behavior. I was
accused of yelling, losing papers of students, (her daughter had refused to do
the assignments), requiring the students to do too much reading (district
selected the reading curriculum), not getting them ready for middle school,
sending students to the resource room due to behavior problems that I did not
want to deal with (it was part of the Boys Town Social Skills that the school
was using). Some parents encouraged me
to fight these false charges, because they wanted me to continue at Oakdale and
teach their other children. One parent
an attorney worked on the paperwork to request a board hearing. I had a hearing and many people came and
spoke along with sending letters. The hearing lasted for hours, due to those
wanting to talk in my behalf. The parent that hated me did not even come to
speak that night, or the other five parents that she encouraged to sign the
petition.
The board voted to send me back to middle
school, since I could not work with a principal that did not support his
teachers. Everything that I was accused
of turned out false. A parent from the
year before spoke on how all the students made the honor roll their first year
in middle school, except one due to that fact that he moved away. One parent broke down and cried due to the
fact that his daughter had the best school year she had ever had in my
classroom. She had been one of the sped
students. She would even talk her
parents into bike riding in the park behind us.
At times I would see her at the back fence just a waving away.
I
am going to fast forward. I did not go
back to Westside Middle that next school year.
The board met in closed session without me or my attorney that summer
and took a new vote that was close but not close enough. The reason for the vote against me was that I
would be a risk. That meeting broke the
open meeting law, so my attorney brought this case to the district court who
then sent it to the NE Supreme Court. It
was such an interesting case that it was chosen to be presented to the
Creighton Law students. I was able to
take the day off from teaching since now at Kiewitt Middle school for
Millard. My attorney presented the case
and all the law students had to take notes and discuss the case.
I
did not have to pay anything for my attorney due to the fact that the parents
that supported me were still paying him.
He was asking for back pay, fees, and my job back, that I really did not
want due to the fact that I was now teaching for Millard. The Supreme Court ruled the year I was to
begin at Millard Young Adult Program in 2000.
They said that since I was a probational teacher the district had the
right to not rehire me. That is what can
happen as a three year teacher with a district. I believe that is a good law,
you don’t want to get stuck with some crazy, pervert teacher and can’t get rid
of him or her. Back to I was a risk, I
had taught a year as a sub at Swanson, two years at Oakdale, and one at
Westside Middle. That is four years not three. The district broke some kind of
a law having me sub a year and not get paid like a teacher. Of course I did not say anything back then. I
also did not belong to the union.
Westside tried to talk me out of the
hearing in the first place, but I needed to clear my name. Sure I was fearful, but my teaching career
was at stake. It was amazing how many
Christian parents who had students at Oakdale came forward to tell me that they
were praying for me and some even sent flowers.
I am so glad that I was not accused of doing something even worse. That student that accused me of yelling, accused
her special needs adult neighbor of talking her into going to his room to look
at a puppy. He then raped her. He was
arrested the night of my hearing, but later released. Plus the student was at school the next day
like nothing had happen, but she sure had gotten lot of attention. I later ran into that student who was now in high
school at one of the student’s funeral.
I told her Hi, and I hope she was still writing, since she was a great
writer back and story teller back when she was in 6th grade. I really did not say story teller, but should
of. She refused to answer me or give me
eye contact. The student whose funeral
we were attending, was left to die in a drinking and driving car accident that
his so called friend who was drunk ran off and left him. I remember discussing with his parents back
in 6th grade that I was seeing a behavior change due to negative
peer pressure. More funerals followed,
one was a suicide for a student that I tutored.
I am sure there will be more to attend.
Tutoring
I also did tutoring in my home for years during
the summer months and on weekends. We
worked on the various skills that the students need to survive in the public
school system. With the older students
we worked on what I call learning strategies; how to take notes, how to take
tests, how to write papers, etc. Younger
ones we worked on the basics of learning to read, write, spell, and math.
Teaching for Millard
Teaching for Millard
I went back to subbing in 97 but only for
Millard. I am so glad that I was not
teaching that school year, since that was the year that my dad found out he had
cancer and then died. I spent a lot of travel time visiting him in KC and
helping my mom out in Pierce City,Mo.
This whole Westside thing was God working to get me out of Westside and
into Millard. Amazing how He works in
our lives. At the time we do not realize
it, but when looking back we see how much He loves us and wants the best for
His children.
I did a long term for a teacher who had a
baby at Kiewitt Middle School in 98. She
decided not to come back the next year, so I taught Resource during the
99/2000 school year. She then changes her mind and wants to come
back to Kiewitt for the 2000/01 year. I
had accepted a transfer to the Young Adult Program at Echo Hills. A few months later I get a call from Kiewitt
to come back and teach for them, since that teacher took a transfer to high
school. They called just in case I did
not like the YAP. I said no, that I
loved the YAP. I was teaching students ages 18-21 with special needs and
behavioral problems. I did not have a
high school student teaching experience, so back to UNO to do student teaching
in my own classroom under the supervision of Aline Jones, who I taught with up until her
retirement a few years ago. Then on to
UNL to get a Specialist Degree in Transition ages 18-21. Now I
am going to take a little break and do the math. How many years did I teach at the YAP? Started the school year of 2000 retired in May
2013 minus the year of sick leave, so that is 12 years.
Young Adult Program
I have to say it again, I loved teaching
at the Young Adult Program. I knew I
would and did not have to interview for this position back in 2000. I had been working for Martin Luther groups
homes for adults with special needs for a few years when not teaching and
during the summers. I would be teaching
some of the same skills, like independent living, job, social, academic,
etc. I started the YAP in a house with
two teachers and maybe 10 students. When
I retired we had a building next to Central Middle school and an off site Voc
Center. We now had four teachers and
many paras, with up to 50-60 students.
We had a great program, but this did take a lot of time, summer hours,
weekend, and long nights at school to have a great program like the YAP. How do I know this? It is because my students are out there
working and keeping their jobs, which is the major goal of our program.
One student Jen O is doing a super job
working at HyVee and has matured to an adult who loves writing poetry, reading,
and traveling. Another one Dan G. has
kept his job at Wal Mart and has also matured into a responsible adult. He is saving his money to buy a dryer for his
mom. Julie G.
I told you I was going to write about you. You also are now an adult: hanging out with
your BFF Liz, chatting on Facebook, going to camp, getting foot surgery, and
playing ball in your wheel chair that allows you to position it to standing
position. Yes, Julie G. you always have
a smile on your face along with Jen W. who is Jen O. BFF who is also has a
beautiful smile and spirit. I could go
on and on about how proud I am of my YAP students. I need to stop naming students, so if you are
reading this and did not see your name, I did not forget you. I know what you are doing, and what you like
since I see you on Facebook. I love how
you are still friends, some of you are dating each other and doing things
together and NOT being a couch potato.
If you are reading this and are still a couch potato, call a friend or
get a job. Maybe even take a break from
video games and clean up your room or surprise mom with making dinner. Miss you all, I have you in my prayers and memories.
Some final thoughts
As I think back, I loved teaching every
grade level. If it was preschool, I
found myself saying. “I love teaching
preschool.” 2nd grade, same
thing, middle school, same thing, subbing same thing, I love subbing. Every day is something different, never
knowing what to expect. Some days I did
not even know the curriculum, like when teaching high school welding,
computers, foreign language, and the dreaded upper level math classes. Thank you Lord for teachers who left answers
to the assignments and plans. I learned
to enter the classrooms and act like I knew what I was doing. While subbing once for a PE class for an OPS
middle school, the plans were for the students to play soccer. I had never seen a soccer game in my life and
had no idea how many balls to bring out.
I grabbed my whistle that I carried in my subbing bag and went out to
introduce myself and help them play soccer.
I will admit that I had major troubles taking role call for some of the
different names I came across. Jesus is
not the way I thought it was pronounced.
Teaching is a lot of hard work and a big
time commitment. Did I mention the
stress and the damage it can do to the body?
Cost of education? meetings, paperwork.?
I must think of the positive, the changing of lives, the growth and
maturity, changes in behavior for the better, learning and using of social
skills, being a role model, learning the curriculum, applying job skills, friendships, etc.
I
have to end with stressing how much I love my new teaching position of being a
GRANDMA to Jocelyn, Katelyn, Easton, and Weston. I can’t forget that MOM teaching
thing that continues even when grown.
Love you Angie and Julie. This
teaching thing does not work with husbands.
Pat does not want to hear about the sugar and wasted calories in the
donut that he ate at church this morning.
He also does not want to hear my lecture on “wants and needs” when he is
spending money. Thanks Pat for putting
up with me during my crazy teaching career and our future years together. Love you!
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