Remembering the Good Times of Teaching

Posted by Barb on March 3, 2010

Last week I meet two of my dearest teacher friends for our annual luncheon.  Unlike me, they have both retired from education.  We started reminiscing about the technology conferences we attended, the integration of technology into our school, and our years of lunches in the lounge.

One of our favorite stories is when we took our first grade classes ice skating.  This was a collimating activity of our winter unit where all of our subject areas were related to the topic.  Now to some of you reading this it might not sound that unique, but living in South Florida most of our students had never seen snow and the only ice they knew about was in their drinks.

They came to school the morning of the trip dress in borrowed hats, mittens, and jackets.  In fact one parent confessed that they had to take the knitted hat off of a stuffed animal so their son could keep his head warm.  We cranked the air conditioner down as low as it could go in order to enhance their experience.  As we left the school building we told the students to take off their winter clothes so they wouldn’t over heat since it was a comfortable 75º; however, they didn’t listen.  It was pretty funny watching the retirees’ faces as they pulled up next to our bus and saw these little faces on the bus all wrapped up in winter clothes.

Once all the skates were laced up, these six and seven year olds headed for the ice.  They spent the first 15 minutes of the session crawling on the ice – a new sensation for them.  Slowing they started to stand and shuffle their feet across the ice.  They hung on to each other and fell together laughing the whole time.  Everyone had a smile on their face as they helped each other.  On returning to school, they enjoyed hot chocolate with marshmallows as they wrote about ice skating.  This was one of the best field trips, not only because it was fun, but because our students had an unforgettable experience.  In fact, one of the ladies I was having lunch with actually broke her arm on this trip and didn’t tell anyone for two weeks.  The reason being, she didn’t want the trip to be deemed too dangerous and then we couldn’t go again next year.

Teaching was much less stressful 15 years ago and more fun.  There was standardized tests then, but they weren’t necessarily tied to promotion, nor were they a direct reflection on the classroom teacher.  There was a sense that you were a professional.  You were able to teach units and integrate that theme into all of the subject areas allowing students to make connections.  I hope that one day soon, teachers can go back to teaching this way.

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