Education

Long term friends are teachers and ranchers in Northwest Colorado. They well know hard work and overcoming adversity. She spent thirty years teaching from an extremely rural one room school to being a superintendent.  With her permission I’m posting something from her Facebook page.

Middle of the Night Musings: What wonderful benefits I have received from the high school education I was given. Back in the Dark Ages, 1960 -1964, when I was in high school, we lived in a small town surrounded by 3 military bases. This was during the Cold War when military numbers were rapidly increasing and so the population within the district was rapidly increasing. However, since the military bases were providing the bulk of housing for the people moving into the district and because the Federal Government doesn’t pay property taxes, there wasn’t enough money in the district coffers to build so many schools so quickly. Most of the funding for the schools came from the Federal Government in the form of “in lieu of taxes” funds. A little secret I’ve learned over the years is that with Federal money comes Federal strings. In the case of the schools, that was a good thing. The schools came well built, fully equipped, well-staffed with well paid teachers, and offering a broad educational opportunity in the offerings of classes, the number of clubs, sports, and other extracurricular opportunities. Not very many high schools had an aeronautics club which had its own flight simulator which was given to them by the Air Force Academy. (That was where I learned that I didn’t have the stomach for becoming an astronaut or even a pilot. I do mean stomach for it because I had a tendency toward air sickness). It was in Future Teachers of American that I confirmed that becoming a teacher was good choice for me. We were required to select a degree track and a minor track which determined the classes you took in order to graduate. The philosophy was that if you weren’t going to college, they wanted you to be able to go out get a job where you could support yourself build a future when you graduated from high school. I chose the college prep as a major and a business track as a minor. Besides stenography, office skills, and classes on using and maintaining the various office machines in use at that time, I had to take two years of typing. I really appreciate all the money and time, encouragement and experiences that I was given in my education to help me lead a fulfilling life; but what it now boils down to is that thanks for the 2 years of typing so that I can sit at my computer without a back lit keyboard, in the middle of the night, and type with enough accuracy that I can share my ramblings with others. If I start to type gibberish or have some typos, you’ll know that I got off line literally.