12 Rules and Guidelines Teachers in the Past Lived By By Lisa Cooper

Members of my profession have been desperately trying to keep track of various educational reforms. The paperwork involved to maintain one class of students – let alone maintaining six or seven groups – is unimaginable. Classroom management is like a crazy dance between laws, administrator demands, parental wants, and student needs.

Sometimes, when I feel overwhelmed with the workload, I find myself wondering what it might be like if I was teaching in the 1850s. Here are 12 rules and guidelines many teachers had to adhere to back then.

1. Teachers each day would fill lamps and clean chimneys.

2. Each teacher would bring a bucket of water and scuttle of coal for the day’s session.

3. Male teachers could take one or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.

4. After 10 hours in school, teachers had to spend their remaining time reading the Bible or other 'good books'.

5. Female teachers who got married or engaged in untraditional ways used to be dismissed.

6. Every teacher had to save some money to use during their declining years so that he/she wouldn’t become a burden on society.

7. Any teacher who smoked used liquor in any form, or got shaved in a barbershop used to be considered

dishonest, unreliable and incompetent.

8. The teacher who performed their work faithfully and without fault for five years used to receive an increase

of 25 cents per week.

9. Teachers used to maintain a garden on school grounds to provide additional food for themselves or students.

10. Teacher candidates had to be at least 16, be able to read and write, do simple arithmetic, and have a reference letter from the church proving their moral character.

11. Teachers used to attend a house of worship every Sunday.

12. It used to be teachers’ responsibility to keep the school clean, to keep the stove going, to bring water from the well, and to start a pot to boil in the morning so students who brought their lunch could heat it if necessary.

Say what you want to about today’s difficulties, but honestly, I wouldn’t want to go back to the “good old days” for anything.