No face-painted, beer-drinking, brightly-garbed teachers around here!

Hal and I are just finishing up a two week research trip in Southern California that has taken us from university and yearly meeting archives to the cultural center of the Kumeyaay Indian tribe and the historical museum of the small town of Ramona. As usually happens on these excursions, the serendipitous finds (those having nothing to do with our actual research project) fascinate me.

During a break from searching through newspapers from the 1880s for information on Quaker Indian William Abel, I came across a contract for public school teachers in 1923. The contract was framed on the wall of the one-room school house. It pertained only to single lady teachers. These women were required to be examples of virtue and decorum. Here’s the text of the contract:

“This is an agreement between Miss Lottie…, teacher, and the Board of Education of the ….School, whereby Miss Lottie …agrees to teach in the …School for the period of eight months beginning September 1, 1923. The Board of Education agrees to pay Miss Lottie… the sum of seventy-five ($75.00) per month.

“Miss Lottie…agrees:

1.   Not to get married. This contract becomes null and void immediately if the teacher marries.

2.   Not to keep company with men.

3.   To be home between the hours of 8:00 PM and 6:00 AM unless she is in attendance at a school function.

4.   Not to loiter downtown in ice cream parlors.

5.   Not to leave town at any time without the permission of the Chairman of the Board of Trustees.

6.   Not to smoke cigarettes. This contract becomes null and void immediately if the teacher is found smoking.

7.   Not to drink beer, wine, or whiskey. This contract becomes null and void immediately if the teacher is found drinking beer, wine, or whiskey.

8.   Not to ride in a carriage or automobile with any man except her brothers or father.

9.   Not to dress in bright colors.

10. Not to dye her hair.

11. To wear at least two petticoats.

12. Not to wear dresses more than two inches above the ankle.

13. To keep the schoolroom clean; to sweep the classroom floor at least once daily; to scrub the classroom floor once a week with hot water and soap; to clean the blackboards at least once daily; to start the fire at 7:00 AM so the room will be warm at 8:00 AM when the children arrive; to carry out the ashes at least once daily.

14. Not to use face powder, mascara, or paint the lips.”

It’s interesting to note there’s not one thing said about how or what this exemplary female is to teach the children. In fact, it gives no hint whatsoever there might be children in the vicinity.

Ramona is actually my hometown. I went to Ramona Elementary School in the 1940s and 50s, and I guess standards were more relaxed by then. My mom taught fourth grade, but she was married, so I guess it didn’t matter than she occasionally wore red. She kept company with my father. I don’t even know how many petticoats she wore.  

I wonder what the contracts for men were like.

Research is such fun.

Tribute to Arthur O. Roberts

Yesterday the faculty of George Fox University honored Arthur Roberts, Quaker professor, philosopher, prophet and poet. (I would add theologian, mentor and friend, but they don’t begin with “p.”) We ate together and listened to some inspiring testimonials. The event truly did honor Arthur.

A month ago, I was invited to write a poem for the occasion and then read it at the ceremony. This is something Arthur frequently did in his poet role. I accepted the task immediately, but with some inner shaking and quaking. Arthur is such a huge presence among us, and his influence in my own life has been profound. How could I capture anything significant in a single poem?

I discovered I couldn’t. But during a week of personal retreat on the Oregon coast, I took time to remember, reflect, and read again some of his poems, as well as favorite underlined passages in his other writings. A deep sense of gratitude bubbled up, as well ideas for many poems. I was able to write out some of them.

I chose to read aloud a poem that focuses on Arthur as professor, since this was an event sponsored by the faculty of the university. I was also compelled by the realization that it was exactly 50 years ago that I entered GFU as a freshman and took my first class from Dr. Roberts.

Here is what I read:

From Professor to Pastor

“I discovered that to teach is to endure some loneliness and that such loneliness comes to all who offer their gifts on the altar of God.”  (From Drawn by the Light: Autobiographical Reflections of Arthur O. Roberts, 1993, The Barclay Press, p. 158)

 1

That first class some fifty years ago

was entitled Introduction to Philosophy

and proved to be my introduction to the world

of abstract thinking. A shy and concrete

country girl from Ramona, California,

I felt as overwhelmed by Roberts

as I did by Plato, Kant and Hume.

My greatest fear was that I’d be called on

to say something in class.

But I did my assignments,

waded through the reading, wrote

the essays, and halfway through the course

noticed that someone

had opened the windows, that light

was coming in, that the world had grown

bigger than I ever knew it to be.

2

At the end of my freshman year

I was chosen to be part

of a group of students

involved in Intensified Studies, IS.

Someone, somewhere thought I was smart

enough. Dr. Roberts himself was to be

our guide. We would read a book

every two weeks and come together

to discuss it. Two reactions bubbled

in my gut as I entered that second year:

pride and panic. Pride to be among

the elect and panic in knowing

I could not hide in so small a group.

Every two weeks I’d have to talk

in class. What would happen if they

discovered me to be inadequate?

What would happen if I did?

3

After four intensified sessions

I made an appointment with Dr. Roberts.

He had invited us to do so at any time.

I had to tell him that I was not stupid;

I was shy. I wasn’t sure if he, or anyone else,

knew the difference. I waited outside his office,

muscles tensed, wondering what to expect.

What I found, once inside,

was not a professor  but a pastor.

Encouraged forward in gentle conversation,

I forgot to be afraid. He told me he himself

had, on occasion, experienced loneliness,

felt shy. He said he never even

suspected me of stupidity. I believed him.

Before I left, he had one more thing

to say to me, and with this he got down

to the core of the matter.

Dr. Roberts told me that with

a little time and practice, he knew without

a doubt that I would learn how to talk with boys.

I left his office relieved on several accounts,

and affirmed not only as an intelligent person,

but also as a young woman and a disciple of Jesus.

It made all the difference.

Nancy, October 2013

Story-telling, teaching and love

"[The] thing that has the capacity to make storytelling glorious is love. Just as great teaching is loving a subject in the presence of students who are also loved, so it is with story. A man who loves the story he is telling, and loves the people he is telling it to, is a formidable bard. Something mysterious happens when story-grip sets in. One man writes a disheveled story, breaks numerous rules, and gets away with it. Another writes a story with every hair in place, prim hands folded on the lap, and it stinks. Then someone else writes a textbook example of doing everything right, and it works anyway. Failures of story-telling are at some level a failure to love. Successes in story-telling are examples of love triumphing."

Douglas Wilson, “Love Story,” March 8, 2010  (www.credenda.org/index.php/From-the-Vaults/love-story.html)

Who? Me?

“Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers and sisters” (James 3:1)

You got that one right.
I shiver at the thought of the men in my class—
leaders all of them, people
of prestige in their own circles.
The literature tells me I’m
not a teacher anyway. I’m
a facilitator, a guide, a fellow
learner, an along-side worker
in the construction of knowledge.
That’s almost as ugly
as being called expert. The term
that fits me best is simply imposter.
Lord, have mercy on us all.

Hospitality: The Virtue of Paying Attention

After two weeks in Costa Rica, we are now in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, staying in the home of Friends pastors, David and Arminda Tintaya. As was the case in San Jose, we have been enveloped in a cape of hospitality. We arrived here at midnight, but no matter. Before retiring to our rooms, we had tea with the Tintayas, taking time to catch up since our last visit. And in the few days we’ve been here, we have been hosted and celebrated every day. Each meeting is accompanied by tea and pastries, by laughter and conversation. The focus is on the event and the relationships, not on the schedule. It feels good to be back.

I’m recognizing again that hospitality is part of the spirituality of Latin America. Meeting together around a meal, taking the time to nurture relationships, acknowledging the other—these are values that are core to the very identity of people on this continent.

While in Costa Rica, much of my time and energy was given to the class I taught on “Culture, Spirituality and Mission.” I’ve had a love/hate relationship with teaching all my life, partly due to my own introversion. I guess I’m sort of like the little girl in the nursery rhyme who, “when she was good, she was very very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid.” (I even have the same curly hair!) I seem to have either very good or horrid teaching experiences.

This time in San Jose, thanks be to God (and to my praying partners), the class was very good, and I’ve gained new insight. I’m seeing a relationship between hospitality and teaching. The teacher is, in a sense, a host who, like a chef, prepares food that both nurtures and delights. And there is joy in the serving, especially when the host/teacher serves something she herself loves. I’m reminded of Quaker educator Parker Palmer’s model of both teacher and students gathered in a circle around a great theme. In this model the teacher is a learner along with her students, sharing her love of the subject and facilitating as the group learns to gaze at the mystery, “the secret that sits in the center.” This sharing and facilitating are basically acts of hospitality, part of the spirituality of teaching.

I think also of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire and his participatory model of education where students are respected for what they bring to the class and encouraged to be active participants in the “construction of knowledge.” This makes the teaching/learning situation one of mutual hospitality, and this dynamic facilitates discovery, application and, hopefully, transformation.

On the airplane between San Jose and Santa Cruz (Saint Joseph and Holy Cross), I was reading a book of essays by Ricardo Barbosa (Conversas no caminho,2008), perhaps the key writer of contemporary Protestant spirituality in Brazil. In an essay simply titled, “Attention,” he makes the statement that “Hospitality is the virtue of paying attention to others. It is the way in which we gather in, listen, touch and create the necessary space for the other to feel loved, protected and accepted.” This is more than serving good food or a stimulating lesson. This integrates hospitality and spirituality and becomes ministry that transforms. Lessons from Latin America.

This is rich food, indeed.


PRODOLA students and teachers, San Jose, August 2009