So...I graduated cum laude in December, 1981, with a Bachelors' Degree in Art Education, from Iowa State University. I was the first in my family to get a college degree. My oldest sister, Dorothy Ann, did get a nursing certificate, but I don't know how many years she had to attend school to get that. At that time, teachers could be certified with just two years of post-high school education, but that requirement changed by the time I went back to school. My sister Jean did attend Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for a time. I believe it was when she was training for the Waves Corp during World War II. My mother and my sister Dorothy Ann came to see me graduate. I know my mother was quite proud of me.
I moved out of my quonset hut and back to Kanawha, and resumed my life, with the option to do substitute teaching. Unfortunately, the school at Kanawha already had an art teacher, so the position was not open to me. During student teaching, one of the teachers at the junior high in Ames said he would put in a good word for me at an opening in southern Iowa, but that would have meant David would have to change jobs, and his was a good job, so I thanked that teacher, and decided I would try substitute teaching.
I want to say a few things about my student teaching experience. I requested that they find me spots in Ames to do the student teaching since I had Alitza with me, and I was not at all interested in moving her to some other town and go through the 'baby-sitting' experience again. The 'powers that be' did find me two spots in Ames - one for my elementary student teaching at Sawyer Elementary, and later at Crawford Elementary. For my upper grades experience, I did my student teaching at Ames Junior High School.
The elementary experience was fun. I had decided to do a series on masks from various cultures, and spent a lot of time at the university library finding photos that I could put onto slides to give my students some ideas of how masks could look, as well as giving them a 'cross-cultural' experience. With my previous projects making papier mache masks, I had that process to offer them, along with other methods of making masks. As I recall, the kids really enjoyed the whole idea of making masks and we had a great time. At the other elementary school, I was working under the art teacher, and he had been given yards and yards of cotton muslin, which we had the kids 'tie-dye' and then we made a huge papier mache dragon's head, and fastened the tie-dyed muslin onto it in a long 'train.' The kids were allowed to get underneath the muslin, with one person supporting the big dragon's head, and we led the 'dragon' through the halls at the school. It was very popular and a big hit.
For my junior high experience, I had the kids do screen-printing on large sheets of colored paper. They made their own stencils using their own ideas for the design. That project turned out well also, with a lot of variety in the designs used. I found that teaching at Ames Junior High was quite the challenge because about 80% of the students' parents were faculty at the university, and the IQ level among the students was quite high. I knew I would have to challenge them in order to maintain some semblance of order in my classes. I planned a unique ceramics project - they were assigned to make small boxes that could hold their ashes, should they decide they wanted to be cremated upon their death. I emphasized that land use was a concern as the world got more and more populated, and to me it seemed that cemeteries take up a lot of land that could be put to better use as crop land or housing. So, I was teaching environmental consciousness along with design concepts. The assignment was that each student was to make their 'box' with their personality in mind, creating sculpted 'ornaments' to be attached to their box which would allow a viewer to know more about the personality of the person whose ashes were contained within.
A few days before I gave my ceramic assignment, the father of one of my students died. That put my assignment into a very sensitive area, and on one of the days when she was out of school for the funeral, I asked her best friends if they thought it would upset her to have this assignment so close to his death. They assured me that she would take it quite well, and that is how it turned out. I was grateful for her maturity because I knew the kids would love doing this project, but I was ready to come up with a different one, should she not have been able to deal with the subject matter.
In that assignment, I taught the students how to craft a clay box, how to adhere objects to its surface and how to make a lid that would fit snugly. I was so pleased when we finished the assignment because I had wonderful boxes turned in...one girl who took ballet did a box with ballet shoes on top; a boy from Egypt did a pyramid; another student liked motorcycles, and made a design for his box with a motorcycle scratched into the top. The variety was outstanding, and I got an A from my professor (actually, I got A's in both my elementary and my secondary experiences.)
One time when my junior high students were too noisy and I was having trouble getting their attention, I climbed up on one of the long tables (like from the cafeteria) and stood there until they all got quiet. I think they were surprised to see a woman of my age (41) doing something that outrageous! I do know that I had their respect, and several of the students came up to me and talked to me about their personal lives. I was not expecting that to happen. That experience was absolutely great...
But, I was back in Kanawha, in January of 1982, and ready to do some substitute teaching. I also was asked to fill in 3 years of the 4-year term of one of the city council members who had moved away. So, I took a petition around and got enough signatures from town people, and started attending city council meetings. I was only the 2nd woman to serve on Kanawha's city council, so that was a bit of a responsibility. Also, my job on the council was to oversee the town's sewage system, which meant that I would be third on the list of people who were called when we got too much rain for the storm sewers to handle, and when someone had to 'man' the lift station where the sewage water is pumped out to the lagoons where it is stored. A couple of times, I had to get up at about 3 a.m. to go down and sit at the lift station to make sure the pump was running. If it stopped, I needed to call the town maintenance man to come and get it going again. I also was responsible for making decisions about what needed to be done to keep our sewage system up to date and in good working order. Later on in my council experience, I was responsible for getting some nearby farmland annexed to build another sewage lagoon, which would make for better and cleaner water being discharged into the little creek west of town. The choices were to annex the land (always a hard decision when you are talking about farm land), or to install aerators in the two current ponds to 'stir' the water and incorporate more oxygen into it so it would decompose at a better rate and be cleaner to discharge into the creek. Well, having aerators would have added expense since they have to be run by electricity. And, someone would have to always be available who had the expertise to get those aerators running again should they quit. Plus, they would eventually wear out and need replacing. I felt that a more natural way was the best, and in the long run, the least expensive and most environmentally advantageous. So, I recommended building the large (double-sized) lagoon, and that was what was done. That system needs no additional machinery to clean the water, so the only thing the town needed to continue to pay to run was the lift-station pump. I still think that was the best solution, and I'm proud of it. (For quite a long time after the construction of that lagoon, there was a huge pile of beautiful Hancock County black soil near the lagoons, which was available for people to come and use. The mound became 'Mount Kanawha.')
When my term was up on the council, I was asked to run again, and I won another four year term. It was a good experience, and well worth the time and effort. I chose not to run another term, though, as getting up in the middle of the night was not my cup of tea, and I felt it was time for a new face to get on the council.
More next time about substitute teaching...
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