1977 - D.M. Eagle Public School

     1977, D.M. Eagle Public School, 5/6 split, my first year teaching.  I came into the school a week before school started to ready my room.  What a shock was in store for me.  My room had been used for storage - it was filthy, had no desks or chairs, the walls were bare, there were no texts, nothing but junk being stored - and it was completely devoid of anything 'educational'.  I was dumbfounded.  The Faculty of Education had not prepared me for this.  I had no idea where to start, but I did anyway.  Surprisingly, by September 6th, it actually looked like a classroom.

     To dress up the walls, after stapling up construction paper on the tack boards, and having no artistic merits at all, I used "Big Bertha" (the gigantic opaque projector) to project and trace Dr. Seuss characters from books.  Hours and hours later, I had Horton, The Cat in the Hat, Sneeches, Things 1 & 2, and a myriad of other Seussical beings adorning the room - no computers, or Internet, or printers in those days.  I also didn't have money to purchase prefab bulletin board art, having just come off of 5 years of university study - married, and living in apartments (thank goodness for student loans!).

     After a couple of years of this time guzzling, boring, repetitious, September classroom prep, I had a brainstorm.  The kids always produced better quality, more imaginative and creative work than I did, so why not use them.  So that first day of school, September 1979-ish, I escorted my new grade 5/6 class from the gym where class lists had been read and invited them into their new room - with bare walls blazing.  After 5 or 6 years of inviting, pleasant, colourful, inspiring classroom walls, they sat in their seats nervously looking at their foreboding, institutional green surroundings.  "Pretty boring and ugly, eh?" I asked them.  I then explained to them that they were ALL more creative than I could ever be.  I told them that by the end of the day, we would have our bare walls fixed up and they were going to do it.  So, we started with a writing assignment that produced stories about "What I Did this Summer" on one half of a large page, and "What I Wish I'd Have Done this Summer" on the other, complete with large colourful drawings.  A math sheet review of facts (yup, we could drill basic math facts in those days) created displayable patterns.  A lesson on the parts of a map created more adornment. And finally - an art lesson.  Voila!

          This year, as in the last many, many years, I have very little wall-prep to do - maybe retape some of the 100-or-so posters which have loosened over the summer, or add a new one.  Here are a couple of shots of my music room:

 

One Week Out

     So, in one more week, I begin my last year of teaching.  This blog will not only serve as a journal and remembrances of a career that has been so important to me, but also as a preparation for retired (retarded?) life.  My final assignment will be similar to last year's - grade 6 vocal music, grades 7 & 8 instrumental music, and for one grade 8 class, I'll teach history, geography, science, phys ed and health.  I'd much rather be teaching music full time, but I am grateful for being given a second kick-at-the-can for the grade 8 stuff.  It was new for me last year (and lots of work to prep) but the most frustrating was as I went along I'd look back and think, "I should have done that differently, or sooner, or later, or not at all!"
   My first year, I remember thinking, "Oh my God.  I'm a real teacher! I'll have my own class in one week."  I was so excited.  35 years later, I still am.