Chalk Dust

From the time I was a young girl, I envisioned being a teacher. I attended Valley Grove, a rural one-room school house, one eighth of a mile from our farm house in Johnson County, Missouri. As a young student, I loved the feel of a musty, worn Dick and Jane reader, the smell of chalk dust and the aroma of pungent smoke from the coal burning stove. What I didn’t like was being the only student in my grade. Finally, in fourth grade, another girl (another Linda) joined me for the rest of our grade school years.

Our school year was only eight months in length. Kindergarten and preschools were unheard of. I have often wondered how those of us from the one room school house ever survived in high school and college since we had missed the equivalent of one year of school.

In the one-room country school, we learned the lessons of life: competition, compassion, creativity, and all the other things that really matter. Although it wasn’t given a label in the 1950s, we learned to mentor others, be involved in cooperative learning and cross curricular activities. The educational jargon and concepts thrown around today really aren’t new at all. They were born out of necessity – one teacher and eight grades to teach! For a time in high school, I entertained thoughts of being a secretary or an airline attendant. One high school summer attempting to transcribe medical records in a secretarial office was enough to let me know that office work wasn’t my cup of tea. I also realized I would need to live in a large city to work for an airline and I wasn’t ready for that!

Mr. Howard Martin, school superintendent at Leeton, Missouri, often directed me to the elementary building to fill in for teachers who had to leave early from school. I loved playing teacher. I was hooked. Someday, I thought, I will have a class of my own.