There are many “remember when” kinds of videos on the Internet, and people send me lots of them. I recently got one from a former colleague that made me think about the beginning of my teaching career back in the ’60s. “The good old days!”
Young teachers didn’t make much money in the early ’60s; we technically qualified for food stamps, although I didn’t know anyone who actually took them. Pride, I suppose. We’d worked hard to earn our degrees to become “professionals,” and we didn’t want to have to accept public assistance.
Nonteachers used to say that we teachers were lucky; we had three months of paid vacation in the summer. We weren’t on vacation, we were laid off! Our nine-months’ salaries were divided up into 12 monthly payments so we had an income over the summer, but it wasn’t much. So almost all of the young male teachers, most of us new fathers, had to take jobs in the summer to make a little extra money to support our families.
The first two summers of my career, I worked with the school district maintenance crew. The first year, I breathed a lot of varnish remover fumes and sanding dust while refinishing wooden desktops in some of the elementary schools and earning minimum wage. The second summer, I got lucky: I was assigned to an outdoor crew, working on lawns, shrubs and athletic fields, again at minimum wage, which was $1.15, but at least I was outside in the fresh air with Mike Shaffer, a really great old “veteran” teacher, and no fumes or sanding dust! And I was happy to be earning an extra 46 bucks a week.
Except we didn’t get paid weekly; we got paid monthly, and often we ran out of money before we ran out of month. Marilyn says we ate a lot of Rice-a-Roni (“The San Francisco Treat”!), SpaghettiOs, Hamburger Helper and Tuna Helper in those days.
Back then, the school board offered some incentives to young teachers to go on to advanced degrees. Faculty members who wanted to work on their master’s degrees could apply for stipends that would cover tuition for graduate courses. And the salary schedule was set up so that teachers with advanced degrees were on a more lucrative track.
So I started carpooling with a crew of my colleagues to take classes at UW-Madison in the morning, and then I’d come home and work a few hours painting houses with some other colleagues. Those were long days! Driving, classes, working, studying and homework. For seven summers I took courses, and finally, in 1969, I wrote my thesis and passed the comprehensive exam to get my M.A. degree.
But the kids were growing up fast and the paycheck still didn’t always make it to the end of the month, so I continued to do painting and repair work every summer to help out, but now I was running my own business, no longer working for the school district on maintenance. The obvious advantage of that was that I could set my own schedule, and it freed me up to help coach Little League and spend time with my kids.
And then for a few years, I taught summer school classes in the mornings and ran my painting/repair business in the afternoon. I much preferred teaching to painting; it was after all, what I’d gone to school to do!
When our kids got old enough to want to earn some money of their own, I hired them to work with me. I quit the summer school teaching to go full-time in the summer painting and repair business. I maintained that business until our last son graduated from college.
I don’t mean to sound like I’m complaining or boasting. Most of my teaching friends have similar stories to tell. We did what we had to do to provide for our families and to continue working in a profession we loved. And in my case, I had some wonderful times working side by side with my kids. I treasure the memories of those summers.
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