Education: Eat, Drink, & Be Welcome

Teaching has been said to be a happy profession. Then why don’t more people want to get into it? Last week Indiana University professors took a survey of 1,615 students, and soon found reasons for the lack of interest. Principal objections: 1) low pay; 2) cramped style—students wanted to be able to smoke, drink, date, dance, play cards, speak, vote, and think as they pleased, with or without the approval of a school board.

In Manhattan last week, an educator admitted that the students knew what they were talking about. Said Dr. John E. Dugan, president of the National Education Association’s department of secondary schoolteachers: “If a teacher is to arouse enthusiasm for the good life . . . he or she should be able to follow the normal process of having dates, getting married, and leading a normal life without undue snooping, sniping, and interference from public busybodies … Teachers must have the right to be human.”

What could be done about it? One city —Portland, Ore.—was trying to find out. Marjorie and Kenneth Means had moved from Iowa to take teaching jobs in Portland. They expected they might be lonely for a while, as most new teachers are. They were in for a surprise.

The first thing they found when they arrived last week was a pleasant little duplex waiting for them. They had no sooner moved in than their phone began to ring and visitors were calling. It was all a part of Portland’s welcome to its 250 new teachers.

The lady behind the welcoming program was an ex-school teacher named Georgia B. Howe, who remembers what it is like to be lonely on a new job. Miss Howe had arranged everything—apartments, luncheons of crab Louis and boysenberry pie, a picnic in the park, a tea at the Art Museum. The Portland Symphony gave a special concert; the Civic Theater arranged a concert-drama evening; the city put on a garden party. There was also a day-long trip up Mount Hood. Local clubs had donated the buses, neighboring towns were waiting with ice cream and coffee, restaurants gave away box lunches, the Chamber of Commerce distributed apples. Miss Howe had also arranged for conferences between the new teachers and their principals, shown them around their classrooms. Said Teacher Kenneth Means: “Portland’s wonderful. I think we’ll stick for quite a while.”