About

 

    I have to say that I learned as much as I taught during my teaching career...Many schools... many subjects...many grade levels...many cultures.

 

    After growing up on a farm...extremely overprotected and knowing little about "the world." I set off to college and graduated from The University of Akron in Akron, Ohio in 1976. It was difficult to find a full-time teaching position at that time. In the beginning I substituted, then became a Learning Disabilities Tutor for three years.  The job was close to home and I had two very young children, so it was a perfect fit. 

 

My First Classroom

 

    Things began to change for me when I accepted my first classroom teaching position at a Jewish Day School. Not being Jewish, I knew little of their customs and beliefs. In fact, my first day I took a ham sandwich for my lunch! Fortunately, I was permitted to eat it outside.

 

    My first contact with the school was a call to substitute for a 2nd, 3rd 4th grade combined class. I was warned that this class had already had several substitutes and the last one left crying. My first day the school was preparing for one of their many Jewish celebrations. Each class was responsible for preparing one of the dishes to be served. My class was in charge of the kosher meat and cheese tray.

 

    When the packaged food had been delivered to the classroom, I paraded the students to the a sink in the all-purpose room where I could observe them washing their hands thoroughly. Freshly scrubbed, we returned to the classroom. I assigned students tasks: laying out the trays, placing the cold-cuts and cheese on the tables with the trays....Then, we started putting the items on the trays. I was keeping a close eye on the youngest students. In doing this, I failed to watch the older students.

 

    I turned just in time to see one of the boys picking up some of the cold-cuts from the floor and  arranging them on the tray. As I looked further, I noticed some of the students chewing. My response was, "Wait! Wait! Everyone sit down. We need to talk!." After I had explained why we couldn't serve food that had fallen on the floor, and that we could not eat the food now, we went back to work with no further crisis.

 

    I finished out the school year with this class with no further crisis. It was a great experience! I was introduced to the Hebrew religion, learned a little bit about their customs and  met some wonderful people.

 

    Before  the fall term began I was hired to teach the same class, now 3rd, 4th and fifth.  I did this in the morning when "English" subjects were taught. In the afternoon, the Jewish staff arrived and taught Hebrew. I was also the art teacher.  I taught my grade K-6 art classes in the afternoon.

 

    I had a lot of freedom with the curriculum. As long as I taught the requirements, I could move them around however I wanted. For example, In Social Studies we were studying the Hawaiian Islands. Students researched the individual islands and wrote reports on the topography, income, tourism, and population.  I selected Island of the Blue Dolphins to read as a class. In science we studied plants. We planted bean sprouts, dissected mangos and kiwi, and studied the growth of other fruits grown in a tropical climate.

 

    The culminating event was a Luau. We made costumes in art class and decorated the room like an island( turning the metal pole in the middle of the room into a palm tree.) The day of the luau we played Hawaiian music as students read their reports then made egg-foo-young (using the bean sprouts we grew), and cut up and ate a variety of fruit: bananas, kiwi, papaya, pineapple. We sampled cocoanut milk, and drank Hawaiian Punch. I t was a celebration to remember!

 

    Another of my favorite projects was writing a biography. Since it was a Jewish Day school, I decided to let the children select a prominent person in Jewish life. Everyone chose a person (past or present)in the government of Israel.  This made a perfect time for studying Israeli government vs. American government (Social Studies).

 

    The Pièce de résistance was the accompanying art project. I taught the students how to draw a portrait of the person they had selected for their report. I can't describe how beautiful they were.  I only wish I had taken pictures of them. I didn't think ahead to take pictures of students work.

 

    We went to the Cleveland Art Museum shortly after studying pollution. Students had created a mobile of the various types of pollution: air, water, soil, noise, radiation and aesthetic, so they were familiar with all of them. We had a little bus that came with a friendly, cheerful, lady bus driver. However, she did not know her way around Cleveland. I had been to the museum many times, but when I wasn't driving I didn't pay attention how to get there. We were soon lost.

   

    As we drove around and around trying to find the entrance, we found ourselves in a back alley littered with trash cans and graffiti. Suddenly, one of the students yelled out, "Aesthetic pollution!

Aesthetic pollution!" I was so proud...

 

     I taught at Hillel Academy in Akron, Ohio for three years. This was the first experience I had "out in the world." Meeting people from different backgrounds. I learned so much from the wonderful people worked with and will always have a special place in my heart for them.

 

Returning to My Childhood