Now this is a code of conduct!

Speaking of the past, this has been hanging in our staff lounge for a couple years now. I was finally able to copy it down. I’ve been meaning to post it here for awhile.

RULES FOR TEACHERS

1872

1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimney.

Makes my complaints about the waste paper buckets not being emptied and my windows continuously leaking air seem trivial.

2. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for that day’s lesson.

A scuttle? I’ll stick to bringing my MacBook and iPod every day.

3. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.

I’d love to have one of those old fashioned quills.

4. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.

I think this was in our former superintendent’s code of conduct that he wanted us to sign.

5. After ten hours in school, teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.

Other good books? I bet they'd burn a teacher at the stake for reading Kaffir Boy.

6. Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.

Unseemly conduct? What about male teachers who marry? This was the one that got my grandmother, Myrtle Baril (some of you may have had her over at Knox) when she first began teaching, for she married but kept it a secret. Of course, when she became pregnant – that was a little difficult to cover up.

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 to society.

As if there’s any extra left!

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.

What’s so bad about the pool halls?

9. The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.

Nothing much has really changed!!