Happy New Year to all. I hope your holidays were spent surrounded by good food and smiling loved ones!
Mr. L. asked me to post the following question directed at all Vandy's Kids,
"Why do my thoughts and memories go back to the students I taught at Center Grove my first 7-1/2 years, more than students I taught at two following schools for a total of 31-1/2 years? Names of students keep resurfacing from time to time with great memories".
I'll take first shot at it-
Good students.
Good school.
Good peers.
Good administration.
Good community support.
And the fact that it was your first teaching assignment may have had a bearing too.
But I think the catcher on your second year baseball team was probably a real factor...
Wasn't he wonderful?
(Humble too!)
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3 comments:
I don't know the answer to that question but it is flattering! I do know that Mr. L was a wonderful teacher. I learned so much in his class and he made me want to learn more. I will never forget his 25th birthday; when he said, "just think, I am one-quarter of a century old!"
WOW did that make an impression...I thought poor old Mr. L was really getting up in age! HAH!!
Remember the spring picnic? The rain and thunder sent us running to Mrs. Brigg's house and she let us stand on her front porch until the storm passed. That poor lady had about 100 soaking wet 12 year-olds on her front porch!
I have always thought of Mr. L through the years and wondered where he was. It is wonderful that we have found him (or he found us) and we can visit. He's top notch in my book and I'm happy that his days at C.G. are good memories for him. It is a very special honor to stay in touch with a great guy.
Bo
I don't know what measuring stick we could use, but for a number of reasons my gut tells me teachers did a better job during our school years. Can any of you think of a student being raised by a single parent during our years at CG? I'm trying, and I cannot think of any.
I know there were unteachable kids amongst us, just as there are kids that are unable to be taught now. But I have heard numbers of kids that are not reading as they graduate High School these days and I find the numbers incredible. How can you graduate High School if you cannot read? What subjects can you pass if you cannot read? How can you graduate under these circumstances?
The old saying that we were in more trouble at home if a teacher had to discipline us in school was mostly true, I think. Parents and teachers were a team, working to insure we got an education so we would be better equipped than our parents to face a world that was changing so fast it made your head swim. These days single parents, (mostly underclass Mothers I would think), lose control of young sons when they're about 13 or so, and many of those children attend school simply because the law requires it. I guess I feel some sadness for teachers required to even try to control kids that aren't being controlled at home. How do you teach someone to read who has no interest in learning?
(And how does someone who has refused to learn have the cojones to come back and try to sue a school system that failed to teach him/her to read?)
It's a complex problem and it's getting worse. We sent our son to a Christian School specifically to remove him from the atmosphere of the public schools. I think we're seeing that attitude accelerating...
Even P.E.B.O. is sending his girls to private schools, (and oddly there is no outcry about it.)
What a mess.
But the point of the post...
I too think Mr. Legan was a great teacher, and his task was made more difficult because he had to teach us both 5th and 6th grade subjects to prepare us for Jr. High.
Thank you again, Mr. Legan.
Like Bo, I'm glad we're back in touch with you so we can show our gratitude.
<>I really appreciated my former student, Greybeard, for placing what I had asked him to do in Vandy’s Kids why CG had a soft spot in my memories.
<>I will ponder that question of my favoring CG in my 38.5 years of teaching experience to two other schools and try to give the answers that I requested from Vandy’s Kids.
<>I had been very familiar with the Center Grove area by having my Uncle and Aunt, and their two kids growing up on Olive Branch Road when I was a youngster. The Center Grove School System was “the Hub” of the area. I was very lucky as a beginning teacher to find such great attributes in the Center Grove Community:
1. Great Administration (always felt very wanted and needed): Woody Wilson (the best administrator I ever worked under), Howard Clashman (elementary principal), Otto J. Sloop, Sn. (elementary principal, who had been my high school math teacher at FHS), Melvin Vandermeer (high school principal), Wilbur Hardin (junior high principal), and Mr.Schulte (first superintendent).
2. Great Staff: teachers, office workers, custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, and a nurse. Each one of these played an important part of me becoming a successful teacher. Because I got to teach four years in elementary and three years in junior high school I got to know both the elementary and high school staff. If it had not been for custodians Bob Scott and Alvey Surface I would not have been the teacher I turned out to be.
3. Parents: The student’s parents I had were wonderful. The parents backed me so much, and it was greatly appreciated. In later years the trend of parents working with teachers begin to change in a negative way.
4. Working at Center Grove was like being with family: Not only did we get to meet and work with administrators and staff, I felt like it was a family of friends with whom I had great admiration. All the athletic events were all very special. When we signed our contracts, the men were to work athletic events, and I believe for the first four years we were not paid $5.00 for each athletic event we worked. When CG hosted the sectional and county tourneys what a great time that was in the community. We also won several of these tourneys. To be there when lights were installed for night football in the fall of 1957 was something special..
5. Students: The students that I had the fortune to teach were a great bunch of kids. In my seven years at CG, I had only one severe discipline problem with a seventh grade student. The rest of the discipline problems were very small and meager.
6. Classroom Containment: With the intermingling of the above 1 thru 5 I have discovered the answer to what I wanted answered concentrates on classroom containment which I taught for 4 years teaching the sixth grade from the classrooms of the tunnel and football dressing rooms to the middle building then later having a new classroom in the new addition of the elementary school. I was the teacher of these students each day for the school year. I don’t remember having any time given to the teachers back then for planning purposes. Oh, yes, we had short period of times for their classes in art and music. We, as teachers, got to know our students very well, more than a departmental atmosphere of teaching. We got close to our kids in many ways. It could be the hurt the students felt, the newness of a new something in their lives, hearing of their home life, sharing things together, the interest and respect of learning from one another, and this list goes on and on. How about the knowing the parents better through class parties, open houses, PTO meetings, parent-teacher conferences, having dinner in some of the parents’ homes, just stopping by a student’s home, our class picnics, visitation to the county jail, free time on Friday afternoon for outside games, for me running around the track trying to defeat student, Mary Royston, in a race which nearly killed me trying to beat her and getting by teaching the rest of the day, my catcher in our softball activities, giving out Double Bubble gum, intramurals, cheerleaders, our scheduled 4 game season of our 6th grade basketball team(coached by me), Saturday practices in that huge gym with at times Coach Cline watching us practice, and just continued memories like this in my tenure at Center Grove continues to be happy ones for me.
In closing I can also sense the one place for everything back in those days at CG. The high school, junior high school, elementary school, and administrative offices were all contained on one campus. That was the era of a small school setting. I did go on the next three years teaching in a departmentalized setting teaching math 7 and 8, and social studies. I never got back to the self-contained classroom in my teaching experiences. I am not knocking departmental teaching, just the closeness is not there like then teaching elementary. I am so glad that I got to teach those four years of elementary, thanks to Mr. Wilson, who asked me to teach at CG after my student teaching there. Thanks to the staff and administrators who assisted me in my early years as an educator. To you the students that I had, a great big round of applause for allowing me to be your teacher. Many persons from this era have died. Thanks CG for giving me memories of being in your midst for 7 years.
Mr. L ( 01-05-09)
TO ANSWER SOME OF GREYBEARD’S REMARKS RECENTLY ON THE SCHOOLS:
You and your student peers lived at a great time for an education. You were allowed to pray, say the Pledge of Alliance, and even be paddled. I can’t think of a single parent at that time. I know that couples had divorced and remarried.
There were times when kids showed me their knives. Now a policeman shows up at school. When there is a scuffle in which teachers no longer handle, the police are called. Back when you were in school big offenses were: no belt(sent home to get one), girls with short skirts(sent home), chewing gum in your mouth(bad),sit balls, and trifle things were handled at the school then handled at home too. That is not the case, lot of parents do not back the teachers but listen to the kid’s side of the story. One thing for sure. Greybeard, the teaching field is getting worse with regards to backing.. If you graduated in 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967 you would be in the age range from 62-59, and most of your kids are out of the home, now you have grandkids, great grandkids?????? Like myself with six grandkids ages from 6 thru 22, I will let their parents take care of rearing them. Ha
Happy New Year to All,
Mr. L
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