Tuesday 4. **Occupations

  Welcome to Tuesday 4.. Hosted by Annie.

Let's talk about your job/former job

1. What kinds of jobs have you had in life? Enjoy or not?  In my family I knew I needed to make my own spending money, so in high school(1964) I baby sat my next door neighbor’s six year old son.  I met him at the school bus and watched him til about 6 when his mother got home.  I made 10 dollars a week.   Hardest 10 bucks ever! The next year I was old enough to work at G C Murphy at the candy counter.  I worked summers and Christmas vacation at minimum wage. I made enough to supply myself in personal articles. The next year I advanced to cashier.  I did that until I graduated  and went to college. I studied elementary education,   which I loved.  I taught 3rd or 4 th grade for 30 years. I retired in 2003.  I absolutely loved teaching for the first 15 years. I was a creative teacher, and enjoyed teaching thinking skills and creativity.  But  around  the mid 80's  the  standardize testing became the main thing..    teach to the test...  became our matra  which I always thought was  horrid.  Everything bout how we did our jobs  changed and  creativity  flew the coop!

2.What duties did you perform on your job.. give us a job description if you please. My day  started at 7:45 as I would get everything set up for the day, roll call at 8:00 then classes started at 8:20.  Part of the time I taught every subject, but there were several years when we separated the students by reading level and we 3 teachers in each grade  taught  our best subjects three times a day, at the level that the students could excel. My subjects were history, and  English,   creative writing,  Another teacher did the science/ health, and math, and the other did the reading, penmanship, spelling. I really loved this because we could plan so much more to do with the students during the 90 minutes we had with them. History was wonderful. I am a huge history buff and we had handmade clothing that was created for the school during the Bicentennial year.  We did re-enactments, living book reports, school plays on various events of our state history.  Everyone loved it! 

3. What training is required to do your type of job (and even a checker in a supermarket needs certain skills such as working well with people and being a bit technical.)I really enjoyed working the check out.  I always actually counted the change back to the customers because I was responsible for the accounting.  I suppose the manager knew I was a responsible teen.  My mother was the buyer for the store. Otherwise in 1972 one needed a BS in elementary Ed to teach.  But I think a Masters would be beneficial these days, or probably is mandatory.

4.Is there a dream job you'd like to have or would have loved to have? Tell us about it, won't you. Once I enrolled in college I had 2 choices. I really wanted to be an interior decorator. But when it came time to choose, my lack of confidence got the best of me.  The idea of dealing with customers.. I always got along so well with children. So I chose teaching!