Janice Collins Bailey, 1960
My first teaching job was as a Senior Girl Scout. I was an aide at the Institute of Logopedics on 13th west of Grove Street. My mom wanted me to go into science, and I worked one summer in the lab at the doctors’ offices at Rutan and Douglas. I enjoyed looking at the petri dishes and determining what kind of bacteria was making someone sick, but when I got to college and took chemistry and calculus, I knew science was not for me.
Job 2 was helping a Kindergarten teacher do a trial summer school program for future kindergartners at Finn School near 13th and Hillside. Why Early Childhood? When I was five, I loved Kindergarten because we got to do so many things. After that, there was more pressure to do well and school was less fun.
From this point on, we moved a lot due to my husband John’s graduate studies and jobs.
Job 3 was as a WSU graduate student working as an aide in the first summer Head Start program in Wichita at Rogers Elementary School in Planeview.
Job 4 was as a regular Kindergarten teacher back at Finn Elementary.
Job 5 was as a graduate teaching assistant in the Dept. of Family and Child Development at KSU, where I was studying for a Master’s Degree. During this period, John earned his BS in Nuclear Engineering. In six years at KSU, I also worked as a head teacher in the Lab School and taught a course in Child Development and Creative Activities for the Preschool Child to college students. We had student teachers and child development observers in our classes. We also had fish and raised rabbits and took advantage of any age-appropriate activities we could get to our facility on campus.
After KSU I usually worked with minority or children otherwise needing a head start about how to deal with the routine of school. Sometimes boys would not paint or work puzzles, so on nice days we would lug our heavy oak tables and easels outside and spend most of the day there. For some reason, boys would do these “classroom” activities outside. We could have hammers and nails on a tree stump for them to hammer or drill. We cooked and made ice cream. The boys loved to show their strength churning. When we talked about food groups, we made something from each of them. We raised chicks from eggs, silkworms, and bean seeds in styrofoam cups. We marched with musical instruments and sang. We made Halloween costumes out of brown paper bags, made Valentines, and dyed Easter Eggs.
Job 6 was at Central Virginia Community College in Lynchburg, VA. where I taught employees of childcare facilities.
Job 7 was eight years at Kechi with Wichita USD 259 teaching preschoolers, then two years on the bargaining team to reach a contract with USD 259. The first was good training for the second.
Three of the teachers at the Kechi location took a physical education class at WSU because we wanted to develop a curriculum and get some P.E. equipment we could use in the gym in the winter. We were granted this. We took our preschoolers for a fall walk and went to the pasture to see the horse and feel his nose. When the lunchroom lady’s cow had a calf, we went to see it. I was able to go on home visits, which was very helpful. If there was someone in the home who kept it organized to the best of their circumstances, I knew the child would have a chance to make it in school. If that wasn’t happening at home, they would have a more difficult time at school.
Job 8 was as the head teacher at the childcare center on the campus of Emporia State University. When I taught at ESU we didn’t have the wonderful big wooden blocks that could be made into a space, a train, or anything else you could get in or on. I went to the moving company and got three-foot tall moving boxes that I cut diagonally into corners like the book Evan’s Corner. The children could decorate their corners any way they wanted with crayons. They had to get permission from a child to use their corner to build large spaces, but I could fold them flat to get them out of the way for some other activity. You can tell that this was the hardest job I ever loved.
Moving on to working with adults, I started a knitting group in Emporia, mended a shawl for the movie “Sarah, Plain and Tall,” and later joined the Emporia Region Quilt Guild. I now am Chairperson for the Prairie Quilt Guild Charity Committee. We make quilts to donate to non-profits and charities in our area. It keeps me out of the classroom and away from germ-sharing little people.
Teaching has turned out to be a family occupation. My daughter was an art teacher at Wichita USD 259 in the elementary schools until she graduated to North High and taught “wet” photography and graphic arts. My granddaughter, who graduated from KU, now teaches digital photography and graphic design courses at North High.
I still hear a lot about teaching. It seems to become more complicated every year. In my opinion, teachers, as well as medical personnel, are GREATLY underpaid.
