Finding
How times have changed!
Paper
A First-Grade Unit on Human Development
Citations: 0
Full textAbstract
THE OTHER first-grade teacher sat down; her wonderful laugh rang out. "I'm sorry, Lindy," she apologized, but she couldn't stop laughing. I was a little stunned myself, although to me it wasn't funny. My husband and I had planned for me to quit teaching at the beginning of my fifth month of pregnancy. Now the superintendent, Dr. Norman B. Scharer, wanted me to finish the school year (my pregnancy would be in its ninth month) and teach a first-grade unit on human development. My immediate reaction had been to tell the other first-grade teacher all about it. Her sound advice based on many years of teaching had carried me through many a beginning-teacher crisis. Her laughter was not what I had expected on this occasion. She finally recovered. "I'm sorry, Lindy, but you youngsters just can't see how ironic this is. How times have changed! When I first began to teach, a married teacher couldn't teach, let alone a pregnant teacher! I think it's wonderful!" Such was the beginning of the reactions to my unit on human development. Other statements were not always so broadminded. For example, the following excerpt from a letter from a college friend in Denver would indicate that education was no prerequisite for approval: "Do you know how my friends take the idea? They are shocked -like old prudes. One said, 'If they taught such a thing here, I'd take my boy out of school.' " Education may not be a prerequisite for approval of such a unit, but a certain amount of information is. The general tenor behind all rejections and disapprovals reflected a lack of understanding of the world of the first-grade child. Uninformed adults, when confronted with the title, "Human Development," immediately conjure up elaborate lectures on sex.
Authors
Edithellen L. Marshall
Journal
The Elementary School Journal