You would have to call me a child of the "Cold War" or something.
I've been going to school now since early September of 1960. By my figuring that makes about 57 years of learning, first as a student and then as a teacher. Oh how the times have changed, again and again over the course of the last nearly 6 decades. It's hard to imagine just how far we have traveled in education and every once in a while it comes to mind for me.
My beginning as a lifelong learner was when I started kindergarten at age 4. I didn't turn to the ripe old age of 5 until nearly Halloween that year. My teacher, Miss Marmont, had 30 of us to "kid wrangle". She did it all by herself without the aid of technology or teacher aides or anything else that we are spoiled by in the classroom today. I don't believe I ever saw that sainted woman take a bathroom break or a coffee break or any kind of break for that matter during the entire school year. She just smiled and kept on teaching. Miss Marmont always wore ruby red lipstick and matching fingernail polish, without a hair in her perfectly coiffed hairstyle out of place.
Josephine Marmont never married or had children of her own. Once I remember her telling my classmates and I that she did have kids and they were us.
She loved us kids and we loved her.
That little tiny girl wearing the plaid dress on the front row right never once figured she would be a teacher. Hey, she was just having fun playing with her friends and wondering if all the cute boys would chase the girls at recess. Life was simple then. Your school supplies consisted of a box of 8 jumbo crayons, a couple of fat pencils that were supposed to last a long time, some paste, and if you were lucky a pair of little scissors. We didn't bring any kleenex to school and if a guy had to blow their nose, well you just got toilet paper out of the bathroom. It was a simple time and I regret now that kids can't experience that today.
During my grade school and high school years, I just kept learning. Still I had no notion that I would ever be a teacher. Not one. I was interested in other things, most of which had nothing to do with my life in the future. Even during my first semester in college I had no inkling at all of what might lie ahead for me. During the winter of my freshman year at a small and private Mennonite College back in Kansas, I finally decided that I wanted to be a teacher.
Becoming an educator was exactly what I did. Since August of 1979 back home in Haven, Kansas I have been a teacher in one teaching assignment or another. After nearly 40 years of doing this, I have taught just about everything that I would have desired to. Half of my career was spent at the small Old Order Amish school in Yoder, Kansas. I learned how to teach two grades at once while at Yoder Grade School and enjoyed my time in the combined 1st and 2nd grade classroom there. I have taught in Kansas. Colorado, Texas and now Oklahoma. My desire is to make it one more year in order to achieve my longtime goal of 4 decades in the classroom.
Time will tell and surely only the good Lord above knows what will happen. One thing I know for certain and will attest to for the rest of the days of my life.
I was born to be a teacher. How thankful I am that I listened to and followed the great plan set out for my life. Even in everything, I have never once looked back.
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