This post is dedicated to one of my fellow bloggers who asked me to tell more about my teaching experience.
Teaching seems to run in our family. My father was a teacher, my wife was a teacher and is now an aide, my daughter is a teacher. I was also a teacher for 9 years.
I started teaching in the Montreal area in 1972. I taught there until we moved to Alberta in 1975. When we arrived here, I got the shock of my life. In Quebec, you could get a teaching certificate after two years of university. This would allow you to teach elementary school. At night you could finish your four year degree and were then eligible to teach high school also. Both my wife and I had taken night course and were just 4 courses short of our degree when we moved to Alberta. We applied for teaching positions and were informed that in Alberta, you had to have a degree or the union wouldn't certify you. We were told we were not qualified to teach Alberta kids. Fair enough, each jurisdiction has their rules. However as we were leaving the office, we were told if a position came up in "special education" we could be hired. I couldn't believe it. I asked the gentleman if he realized what he had said. We were NOT qualified to teach kids who could learn, but we WERE qualified to teach kids who couldn't. He told me yes. So, I asked him if that made sense to him. And it did !!
We ended up teaching at a private school for kids with learning disabilities. There were 145 kids ranging in age from 5-18 years. The disabilities ranged from hearing defects to speech problems, kids with anoxia at birth, some with musculature problems, some with autism and some with multiple problems. I taught the Phys. Ed classes and taught all the kids in the school. It was difficult because the classes were based on academic ability. I had some kids that were 7 or 8 in the same class as someone who was 18. There might be somebody with reading problems and no physical problems in the same class as someone else who had muscle problems but was fairly high academically.
This was in 1975 -1980. There were no real Phys. Ed programs developed for these kids. We had to make them up as we went along.
I had one little girl who was eleven. She had anoxia at birth where the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck and caused oxygen deprivation. She could not jump with both feet off the ground at the same time, could not walk down the stairs properly and spoke only in vowels. No consonants at all. And she liked to talk. After knowing her for a while, I got pretty good at filling in the proper letters so I knew what she was talking about. Jumping we worked on for two years and still did not get completely off the ground. We did get closer however. Coming down the stairs was a partial success. I spent every day on my hands and knees pulling her feet to the proper stair. Fifteen minutes a day for a year. She could finally do it but only if she thought about it and she had to hold the rail going down. It was certainly worth the time and effort.
We had another little boy who was probably being abused at home. He was extremely withdrawn and wouldn't communicate. He hated to be touched and getting him to do anything was a chore. Trust took time. The amazing thing about him was he could draw like a professional. He did pencil drawings of people's faces. And they were perfect. He had proportion, depth and shading. He even put in little details like eyelashes. He was six years old. At the end of two years, he would finally talk to me and actually let me pat him on the shoulder when he did something well.
I remember one boy we had who came to us when he was in grade 7 in a regular school. He was having trouble in his English class. He was doing very well in Math , Social Studies, and Science. When he was tested, we found out he could NOT read at a grade 1 level and yet here he was in grade 7 and supposedly doing well. How? If he couldn't read !!
After three years at our school he went back to regular school and did very well.
These are just some of the kids I taught. I'll write more another time.
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6 comments:
Wonderful teacher tales, Moose.
I wonder what happened to the little kid who could draw so well at six? Do you ever wonder how they turned out 30 years later?
Lin: Yes I often wonder how some of these kids turned out. They were such good kids , just had some problems hat weren't even their fault. I know for sure that the year I left,one of the good guys went back to his hometown and graduated high school 3 years later. He phoned to let me know.
Hi moose. Re the child who was in seventh grade and couldn't read. Some years ago I enlisted in a program here to teach reading and writing to the illiterate. My first student was fortyish. He could not read and a promotion was due him at work. He knew he'd have to be able to read to handle the job. We started the lessons and within three months he was able to read at a high school senior level. The bad part? He had "earned" a high school diploma
from a local schoool here without being able to write themes, read assignments nor books.
He credited his "diploma" to having a great memory. A common event in the illiterate.
So Canada and the US have more things in common.
BTW, I assume you speak, read and write French?
Cat: Good for you for helping out. So many people can't read just because they missed a basic Instruction somewhere along the line.
The boy in grade 7 was getting by with his good memory and personality also.
As a matter of fact, when we left Montreal, I did speak,write and read French. It has been so long since I had to I think I have lost most of it.
Mrs. Moose is a teachers aide in a French Immersion school here in Alberta.
How fortunate that you had the privilege of teaching. I've often heard that when one part of the body performs poorly there will be a compensation somewhere else. Sometimes just being able to write or draw will open up worlds to people who are otherwise shy or introverted, creating whole new levels of rewarding experience. I think music, drama, the arts, and physical education are so important.
Bonita, I couldn't agree more. It was the most rewarding job I ever had. It just got to be too much. When I left, I was getting maybe 2-3 hours sleep/night because I would mentally be thinking what I could do for each child to stimulate them and help them learn.
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