A Grand Reunion
By OVID VICKERS
In September 1952 with my newly-earned college diploma in hand, I walked into the first class I ever taught. I had accepted a position teaching high school English in a consolidated school in the small town of Rhine in the wiregrass region of South Georgia. This was in the midst of the Korean War, and I knew I would be lucky if I were not drafted during the year. Sure enough, the day the school year ended the local draft board sent me greetings. In two years, when the war ended, I was discharged and soon joined the faculty of East Central Junior College.
The year I taught in Rhine, a community settled by German immigrants in the late 1800s, was my only experience with high school teaching, and I learned a great deal that year. Colleges of education make a great effort to teach prospective teachers how to teach, but a teacher only learns to teach by teaching.
At that time, Georgia students graduated after eleven years of school while those in Mississippi attended for twelve years. However, students in Georgia were in school nine months each year while the school year in Mississippi was for eight months. So, each state was offering the same amount of instruction.
The last week in August of this year I received a phone call inviting me to attend a reunion of the first class I taught. It had been over 50 years since I stood before those seventeen-year-old students and lectured about grammar, composition, and literature. I was flattered to have been asked to attend the reunion, so I accepted the invitation and asked my son to make the seven-hour drive to South Georgia with me.
This "eating meeting" was held in the county seat of Eastman (the home of the Stuckey Candy Company) 16 miles from the little town of Rhine. After the usual reunion questions had been answered (Who came the greatest distance? Who has the most children? Who lives out of state? Who continues to live in the county?), I was invited to say a few words.
I had the opportunity to congratulate the class, although they are all retired, on the successes they have enjoyed, on the contributions they have made to their communities, and on the great debt I owe them for making my first year of teaching such an enjoyable experience.
As I looked over this group of gray-haired folks who are now in their seventies, I realized how successful they had been even though the curriculum of the high school they attended was very limited. As was true of most small high schools in the 1950s, the only mathematics taught was first and second year algebra. There was no trigonometry, geometry or high school calculus. The biology was strictly a lecture course without a microscope, much less a laboratory. Chemistry and a foreign language were also not a part of the curriculum.
A few years ago, the five high schools in the county were consolidated into one high school and two elementary schools. The Rhine High School building has since burned, although the gymnasium now serves as a community center. The graduates of the school have erected a marble monument where the school once stood to honor the school and the years it served the community.
During my lifetime, I have traveled a great deal in this country and in Europe, but I must say that Rhine, Georgia, was the most interesting place I ever lived. The people were very proud of their school and their town. They were like a large family that sometimes argued among themselves, but criticism from an outsider was not tolerated.
And what did I learn from my students that first year? I learned that a class of 25 students are smarter than the teacher because each student knows something the teacher does not know. I learned to respect students' opinions. Forget the adage "The teacher is always right." If you make a mistake, admit it.
Be prepared. The students will know if you are not prepared or if you come to class after having thrown something together at the last minute. I realized a teacher learns more the first year that he or she teaches than was learned during four years of college. I learned to be reasonable. Teachers must learn that students do have problems which can interfere with their school work.
When I taught there, fifteen teachers were on the faculty of Rhine School. Today only three of us are alive. The oldest is a spry 93, and the youngest is 79. Three members of the class have passed away, and so the class decided to begin meeting each year rather than every five years. I probably won't make the long trip for the next reunion, but I will never forget the class who taught me so much that first year I walked into a classroom.
