Rules For Teachers, 1872
1. Teachers each day will fill lamps and clean chimneys.
2. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day’s session.
3. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle tips to the individual taste of the pupils.
4. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.
5. After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.
6. Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
7. Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.
8. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity and honesty.
9. The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.
--Oregon Historical Museum
LOL! I've seen these before! Van Buren and Fort Smith, Arkansas has a huge historical district. A couple of years ago, my grandmother and I were walking through the Old Fort Museum and they had a list of rules every teacher must follow there.
ReplyDeleteMy favorites are 4 and 5.
I don't think I would have ever made it as a teacher. :)
These are funny!
ReplyDeleteAs a teacher I can tell you that we are still held to a different standard than others. We aren't supposed to drink, listen to contemporary music, buy feminine hygiene products, or purchase toilet paper. Students and their parents act shocked and amazed when they see us eating in restaurants, especially if *gasp* we appear to be on a date. It's like they think we curl up under our desks for the night after the final bell rings.
Hey Andi! I love 6 & 8. Those immoral women..getting married like that! And getting shaved in a barber shop, was that the equivalent of getting a massage in a massage parlor??
ReplyDeleteEyre, I remember the first time I realized that teachers were *gasp* people...it was when my second grade teacher disappeared right after sharing the news she was going to have a baby. Oh, and she was MISS Saig. Ooops. She was soo outta there, and that was the 70's.
ReplyDeleteAnd you guys are still underpaid for all you do and are responsible for.
Thanks, Devon. I've actually had parents tell me that I get paid too much and that it's wrong that I get paid for not working during the summer. I can't believe people think we get paid in the summer. The only way I get a paycheck from June through August is if I let the district hold money out of my checks during the school year. Some people really think that we get paid to stay home.
ReplyDeleteYour poor second grade teacher! I wonder what happened to her. I have a friend who wasn't allowed to do her student teaching in the eighties because she was pregnant and unwed.
#4 is my favorite - if you go to church, then you can go on 2 dates a week. But if you don't go to church, then you're only allowed a chance to get lucky once a week . LOL
ReplyDelete