School: Memories, Another Year Begins

“Never underestimate a public school teacher.”  Tim Walz, acceptance speech at the DNC Convention 2024.

Tuesday after Labor Day is the traditional start to the school year in Minnesota.  While there are some deviations from that norm, most pre-K-12 kids will be back in school on Tuesday.  This  means approximately 50,000,000 youngsters.  Another 5 million or so are in private schools; an unknown but significant number of students are home-schooled.

Monday, August 26, I had my picture taken at the booth of Education Minnesota, the school employees union which was my employer for 27 years.  Here is the pdf. Education Minnesota 2024

However one slices it, there are a great number of kids in school, everywhere in this nation, and if one factors in all school employees, from bus drivers to superintendents there are millions more involved in public education.  Of course, this breadth creates infinite opportunities for good and bad publicity.

Public Education is an essential institution of human beings.  Public schools are where the vast majority of us grew up as part of a greater community than traditional family to become the adults in society that we are today.

Public education is not perfect.  No institution of humanity is.  Nonetheless, we can all be thankful public education not only exists, but thrives.  Back in 2006, I endeavored to define public education as community.  The short essay is here: Community by Dick Bernard 2006.

I probably relate to public education much more than most.

My parents were career public school teachers; I graduated from a Teachers College; I taught junior high school for 9 years, then spent 27 years representing public school teachers.  My children and grandchildren went to public school. One daughter is  long-time Principal of a large suburban Middle School; another daughter teaches grade 7-8 in a parochial school.  I’m not a school inspector, looking over people’s shoulders, but I can fairly say that one time or another I have witnessed a great variety of situations.

Mom and Dad began their teaching careers in the 1920s in one-room country schools in North Dakota (which is where Mom and her siblings attended their first 8 grades). Their first home as a married couple was a vacant classroom in their school at Medora ND.

We lived in a variety of tiny places in North Dakota.  The population of my largest town was about 230 when I lived there, making VP candidate Tim Walz’s Butte NE almost a big city in comparison.  My senior class was 8 students.

There were lots of deficiencies in these tiny places.  A typical high school had perhaps two or three teachers, one of whom was the Superintendent, who was always my Dad.  Being a teachers kid had its disadvantages, of course.  On the other hand, you had the teacher 24-7, like it or not!  I have no complaints.

A short while ago I came across a picture of Dad visiting a rural school he’d superintended nearly 50 years earlier, when he was in his 30s and I was 3-5 years old.

Henry Bernard visiting Eldridge Public School 1991.  Photo by Dick Bernard (he was about my present age in this photo).

This particular school (Eldridge, ND a few miles west of Jamestown on I-94) was occupied by a family when we visited it in 1991 and it was in good shape, though it had not been a school for years.  Dad is holding onto the rope for the school bell.

As noted, Mom and Dad were both career school teachers.  Two of Mom’s sisters were teachers, and one brother and one sister-in-law and one brother-in-law as well, so there was no lack of teacher presence when there were family get-togethers.

Teaching and School and all the attendant support staff and programs is an essential human institution.  Every year is a new start for students and everyone else.  New classes, classmates, parents, etc., etc., etc.

I have always been intrigued by the philosophy of education for Roosevelt Junior High School (grade 7-9) in 1966.  Roosevelt was where I taught 1965-72.  The philosophy, printed in the yearbook between the photos of Principal and Assistant Principal, was very succinct: “A junior high school is a bridge between elementary and senior high school.  It is a point where young people can have a chance to mature before they start to accept their responsibilities as adults”.

To all those in school, I wish you a good year!

Mom, Esther, (left) and Lucina Busch, her sister, at the farm probably 1926 after Esther’s graduation from high school.  Both attended and graduated from St. John’s Academy in Jamestown ND, classes of 1925 and 1926.  Photo was taken with the family box camera.

COMMENTS: