While I was on vacation this summer in North Bonneville Wash. down along the Columbia River. We went to the Interpretive Center and one of the exhibits was on the history of some of the local schools. I took a picture of the nine rules a teacher must follow in 1872. It was amazing to me how this profession has not changed much in the many years that it has been around. Some rules when taken in a present day perspective are still applicable. I still see many teachers giving personal time to gather supplies for students and I believe we are all looked to by children and adults with the expectation that we will set a moral standard for those around us. Thankfully we have come a long way in other ways and though we may joke about it we do get more than a twenty-five cent raise!
The poster is a bit hard to see so I will type the rules below:
Rules for Teachers 1872
1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys. (make copies, correct papers)
2. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day's sessions. (extra supplies at the store bought with personal money, snacks for children so everyone has one)
3. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils. (differentiated instruction to accommodate all learners)
4. Men teachers may take one evening a week for courting purposes or two evenings a week, if they go to church regularly.
5. After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books. (Woodring students may do their homework)
6. Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
7. Each teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on Society. (don't rely on Social Security, set up your own 401K)
8. Any teacher that smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity and honesty. (you must now leave school property to use tobacco products, but I suggest you quit today because that stuff will kill you!)
9. The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.
3 comments:
Very interesting Bree! Funny how some of the rules are still intact today just slightly modernized. It would be interesting to see what people laught at in the future about the rules we have to follow.
I was very fond of the Rules for Teachers 1872 section that you included. I thought your commentary was humorous. Hey who thinks teachers become a burden to society anyway?
Bree this list is so funny! What a great find. I really liked how you 'updated' some of the rules so that they can still be applicable to our lives. It's funny how in 1872 these were explicitly stated as rules whereas now many of them are just seen as the way of life for a teacher (work LONG hours, bring in extra supplies, etc.). At least these hidden rules to being a teacher nowadays aren't really suprises to us now!
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