Probably one of the most important experiences of my teaching career is approaching its 50th anniversary and it almost passed unnoticed.  That would have been unfortunate since that experience opened the door to a my 42 year career of enjoying and educating young people as a teacher.

Diane reminded me of that important experience when she posted on Facebook about her upcoming 50th high school class reunion in 2019.  She is planning on communicating with as many classmates and teachers as possible.  After interviewing them she plans to write several pages of each person’s life story.  These life stories will be compiled into a book which she will distribute to classmates and teachers at the reunion gathering.  It sounds like a daunting task but after visiting with Diane several weeks ago I think she is up to it.

The interview with Diane brought back old memories.  You see it will be 50 years ago this fall that I did my student teaching at the Wheaton High School.  Little did I realize at the time that Wheaton would end up being my home for the next 50 years.  And since this is my “50th year student teaching anniversary” that means the biology students that provided me my first “hands on” teaching experience were the class of 1969……the same class that will be celebrating their 50th class reunion in 2019!  How appropriate to do a little reminiscing.

Mr. Richter was the teacher whom I would be supervised by.  He wrote me a letter in the middle of the summer of 1966 to introduce himself and welcome me to the school saying he looked forward to working with me.  That meant a  lot to me because the whole student teaching process was new to me and a little unnerving to say the least!  I realized my success or failure as a teacher would be determined by this eleven week experience.

I now realize after all of these years of teaching that each class has a class personality.  There may be 57 different individual personalities making up the class but when you mix them together a unique class personality appears.  Well the class personality of the Wheaton sophomores in 1966-67 was gentle, respectful, curious and had a wonderful sense of humor.  My jitters quickly subsided as I began working with them.

My student teaching experience was in two parts.  I visited the school and observed the opening three weeks of the school year.  I and another student teacher roomed at Jake Schmitz’s house.  Bruce Grosland a recent Wheaton graduate and a student at UMM took us on an apple stealing raid in his home town one night.  I was scared to death we would be caught and my teaching career would be over before it got started!  Luckily the raid ended successfully and no elderly ladies sicked their dogs on us nor did I get sick from all the apples I ate!

My main mission that fall was to observe the students return to school, observe how the school year began and assist Mr. Richter in any small task he may need from me.  Janette became my first assignment.  The Minnesota State Fair was being held in St. Paul during the first week of school and 4-H students needed to attend with their championship projects.  Of course Janette was one of those students and she had returned and needed to make up a lab that the class had done during her absence.

Mr. Richter called Janette to the front of the room and directed her to go with me to the supply room and I would help her complete her missed assignment.  Here I am this young, decent looking, single college student leading this shy little blonde sophomore girl into the back supply room.  Her fellow sophomores began to chuckle and make quiet catcalls as we disappeared from view.  Mr. Richter halted that behavior very quickly, however, with a stern warning and peace quickly returned to the classroom.

I remember the lab very well.  It was designed to get students to begin thinking about life….what does it mean to be alive?  A glob of mercury was placed in a petri dish and the student would drop potassium dichromate over the mercury which caused a chemical reaction and the mercury appeared to move like an amoeba.  That activity would be banned from today’s curriculum.  At that time no one understood the poisonous qualities of mercury.  Several years ago a bottle of mercury was accidently spilled in a science lab and the whole school was evacuated!

Janette still lives in the Wheaton community and we have chuckled over our scientific adventure in the biology back room many times.

After Christmas I returned to do the bulk of my student teaching.  Mr. Richter lived only two blocks from the high school and he and his wife invited me to stay in their extra bedroom.  Since I was a pauper college student I quickly took them up on the offer!

That’s when I began to realize the amount of preparation time teaching would take. Paper correcting was discovered during that time also.  Lesson plans, lesson plans, and then more lesson plans!  But I loved it and I enjoyed the students as well as the interaction with the faculty.

My main mode of transformation during that time was a pea-green, 1952 Pontiac, two door car which I had bought with my income tax refund of $67!  It was not very reliable.  So every Friday when it came time for me to return to UMM for the weekend my car wouldn’t start.  I would call the guy at the garage and he would come and jump start my car every Friday.  By the end of my teaching experience we had become great friends.

Probably the proudest part of my teaching experience besides successfully passing the course was the last week.  Mr. Richter needed an operation on his arm that would lay him up for around a week.  When he saw that I was maintaining control of my classes he got permission from the administration to have surgery on his arm.  I was left to teach all six classes by myself for the whole week!  I felt like a real teacher and the week went well.  The principal had promised to stop in and check on me but I never saw him once.  I took that to mean he was confident that I could do the job.

Sometimes students give to the teacher as much as the teacher gives to them.  I learned that on the last day of my student teaching assignment.  As the bell rang on the final class of the day a cute, little sophomore girl walked up to me and handed me a note.  On the outside of the folded notebook paper was written “Good-Bye Mr. Larson”.  Now that was enough to choke me up but as I opened it up I read written in four different handwriting styles:  “It was nice having you teach.  I learned something!”  “We will miss you very much!!”  “I learned more from you than I have from Mr. Richter.”  “Same”

At the bottom of the note were five names; Jan, Jean, Diane, Karen and Janel.

I have kept that note all these years…..it’s going to be 50 years old soon!  That note represents the reason I taught for 42 years.  Thank you students for all that you have given back to me over those 42 years! 🙂

Until next time.