Student Teaching

(This is the first story of my life in the 1970s. Fifty-one more will follow.)

I student taught at the elementary school in Crawfordsville, Iowa, part of the WACO Community School District. I spent the spring semester of 1971 in Marilyn Ries’s 4th grade classroom. She was a great teacher and I was very fortunate to be able to learn from her.

We had two cars in those days. One was a 1954 Chevy Becky’s parents had given her. It wasn’t really a bad car but after we had it awhile reverse went out of it. You had to be careful where you parked. If you had enough space to pull in to parallel park you were fine but if you parked diagonally then you would have to push it out of the spot by hand and then jump in and drive away.

The other car we had was a red Opal Cadet. It was a small car with an equally small engine. It took a couple miles to get up close to the speed limit if there was more than one person in the car. If you were driving into the wind you couldn’t get up much past 45 miles per hour. It got great gas mileage! The doors were thin and it was about as solid as and empty pop can. The car, made by Buick, is no longer manufactured.

So, when it came time to commute to Crawfordsville the Opal seemed like the way to go. I car-pooled with Anita (Brent) Hampton and one other person who I have forgotten. When it was my turn to drive we packed all of our books and bodies in the tiny Opal and headed off. We had to leave ten minutes earlier if I was driving simply because the Opal was so slow. I am happy to say we made it safely there everyday even if some trips took longer.

I was a brash young teacher in those days and maybe a little too bold and progressive for some of the older teachers at the Crawfordville building. More than once they shook their heads at me. Once, after we had launched a home made model airplane from the third story window of the building, one of the teachers told me, over lunch, she hoped I grew up before I started teaching. Fortunately, another mature teacher immediately said, “I hope he doesn’t! He is going to be a great teacher just as he is!”

Midway through student teaching Mrs. Ries told me she was going to give me an “A” for the course. In April, Ottumwa Community School District asked me to come to an interview. Kathy (Garretson) Helman and I drove over for the opportunity. We were interviewed at the district’s central office that was in a huge, but elegant old house. They offered me a contract on the spot and pressured me to sign. I told them that I would need more time and took the contract home.

The temptation was great to sign that contract but I knew I had a shot at a job in Mt. Pleasant, too. John Becker had promised me a job. John was an old friend from the swimming pool and principal at Saunders Elementary, my old school. When he saw the contract from Ottumwa he hurried things up for me and Mt. Pleasant offered me a contract, too. I signed it and took a job across the street from the house I grew up in, replacing my fourth grade teacher.