...we've come a long way, baby.

My grandmother, my dad's mom, taught in a one room school. The following is her teaching contract.

1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys.
2. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day.
3. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.
4. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings if they go to church regularly.
5. After 10 hours in school, the teacher 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 fail for five years will be given an increase of 25 cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.

And we thought our teachers were underpaid. I thought this was hilarious when I saw it. Today we can't get our kids to take out the trash for 25 cents a week, let alone teach for five years before getting it. I do not dismiss the poor pay our teachers receive, especially since they are also in many cases parenting their students, but it could have been worse.