I started band in 7th grade (the first grade we could take it way back then); I played percussion--mostly the bells and xylophone, but I also played most of the drums at some point or another throughout my high school band career. As I started my Senior year, I decided that I didn't want to be in band any more. In order to drop band, though, I had to replace it with something; I couldn't just have a free hour.
As I was already a teaching assistant (TA) for my English teacher and I was a TA in the library, I had to take an actual class to replace band. But I didn't NEED anything else for my curriculum. Being on a college track, I either had already taken or I was taking at that time all the required college prep classes. So when I sat down with my counselor, Mrs. Finch, she threw out a couple of ideas at me. None of which I thought worked for me.
Art?
Home ec?
Typing?
Another science--physics?
When I expressed my complete dislike of each of those options, Mrs. Finch gently shared with me that if I was serious about quitting band, I had to replace it with something. She asked me which of the choices seemed the least objectionable. I told her they were all objectionable. I started going down the list as to why each was so incredibly objectionable:
Art--I'm not artsy AT ALL. I couldn't take a class I was bound to fail.
Home ec--I'd already learned to sew and cook. I just didn't need such a class.
Typing--a teacher didn't need to know how to type. Teachers made copies of everything they needed using the information and supplies provided by the textbook companies and/or the teacher stores where teachers bought a lot of their supplies. (Pre-internet days, I remind you.)
And science--are you Serious?! I barely passed all my previous science classes! Why would I subject myself to another one?!
Mrs. Finch's face lit up by the end of my tirade, though. She knew which class would work best for me: Typing.
But what do I need to learn to type for? Teachers don't need to know how to type.
Oh, but yes, they do! Don't you realize that the future of teachers is such that more and more teachers are creating their own documents which means that they have to type them up themselves?
I started hearing "Blah, blah, blah," but I agreed that typing was the least objectionable class left on the list of things for me to take instead of band, so I let her fill out the paperwork to get me transferred into Mrs. Battle's typing class.
Blech.
I admit that I went into my typing class with high expectations of not only hating it, but also never using any skills I might learn in the class in my future life as a teacher.
Our typewriters were Olivetti electronic typewriters. At least these typewriters were newer and more up-to-date than the type on which my mom had learned to type. I was miserable.
But on that first day, I realized that the guy with whom I was madly in love was in the same class! I even managed to get a typewriter close to him! (He quit halfway through the year. Oh well.)
OK. So typing wasn't going to be so bad! To make it even better, one of my best [guy] friends was in the class, too. Bottom line? It was a thousand times better than band. (Not that band is the most awful class. I was just done with it.)
I remember Mrs. Battle doing an awful lot of sitting at her desk looking out at us every so often as she worked on grading assignments and then getting up every twenty minutes or so to walk around the room to look over our shoulders. There isn't an awful lot a typing teacher has to do once she has taught the basics of typing beyond being there to help us correct our mistakes and encouraging us to practice, practice, practice. She knew that she made me nervous when she would walk around the room, but she'd smile, put her hand on my shoulder, and tell me to relax--I had this.
And I did. I left Mrs. Battle's class with a fairly high words-per-minute average and it has only gotten better and better in the twenty-plus years since high school. What is so wonderfully ironic is that Typing really and truly has been an incredible benefit to me in my career as a teacher--as well as in other areas of my life! I spend a LOT of time on a computer, not to surf the internet or play on Facebook (although I do a lot of both), but to type--to type my journal, to type my blogs, and especially to type my own documents and assignments for my classes that I teach! As well as proposals and other career and professional documents!
I even became the official typist for many of my brother's friends when we were in college! They'd bring their rough drafts to me and I'd type them up. No, I didn't get paid for doing it. My brother told them I'd do it, so I did.....(You know how it is between siblings!!!!)
I thought typing was going to be the least beneficial class of my high school career. As both Mrs. Finch and Mrs. Battle seemed to know even way back then, typing has, instead, become the most beneficial class of my high school career for my own career as a teacher. Thank you, Mrs. Finch and Mrs. Battle for giving me the skills to type--and to type well. The fact that I can type something like this myself in less than half an hour is truly a tribute to the influence of these two Super Teachers!
Thank you.
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