Interview with Nancy Wilson Oursler

Karen Blair: Mrs. Oursler, thank you for sharing with us your thoughts about your teacher preparation here at Towson University and your subsequent career in Education. This will add greatly to our understanding of the evolution of Teacher Education at Towson across time. I think the best place to begin is probably in the beginning. The first thing I’d love for you to share with us is a little bit about your early social context: where you grew up, what kinds of thoughts you were having about a career, when you thought teaching would be the right place for you and why you chose Towson University. Nancy Oursler: I’d be glad to. I grew up in the city, outskirts of the city, almost in the county, in a wonderful little community of Howard Park in Maryland. My mother had been a teacher. I always thought that somewhere along the line I was going to fall into this as well. But, I wasn’t really sure. As I got into my high school years, I thought “I don’t want to do that. I think I want to go into nursing.” I was a pinkie at one of the local hospitals, and I soon found out that really wasn’t where I needed to go. With my father’s encouragement, he decided that I was going to Towson. I’m very glad that he pushed me in that direction. I had spent years working with children in church, teaching Sunday school with smaller children, with the younger children, which I really seemed to know that’s where my niche was going to be. When I came to Towson, I knew exactly what program I was going to be enrolled in. K.B.: You came to Towson as a teacher candidate and you already had some sense that you wanted to work with younger children. When it was time to decide on your age emphasis, you elected what was then called? N.O.: Kindergarten/Primary. You could only teach up until the third grade. You were a Primary teacher. It was a great. I had wonderful instructors. It wasn’t until you got into almost your junior year that you could hone in on the program that you were hoping was for you. Up until then, you’re just taking the English and the Art and all the other general classes. I was on campus here. There was the Lida Lee Tall School. I was very fortunate to have been chosen to do my student teaching at Lida Lee under the advice of Alice Holden, who was at that time, I think, one of the Teachers of the Year. She was wonderful. She was very much what I needed at that time, so inspiring. Her method and her way of working with young children in the kindergarten were absolutely wonderful. She had a relationship with these children that was absolutely precious. Each child was, absolutely, a gift to her. I think she, hopefully, instilled that in me. Each child was an individual. Each child was a gift. You did what you could to make this child as comfortable and as happy as possible. Little children are hard. Five year olds want to cry and want Mommy and don’t want to come in and don’t want to put their boots on and don’t want to do many things. Her way of trying to get that across was wonderful. I was in awe of her, I really was. K.B.: Nancy, did you get to observe at Lida Lee Tall or other places before you actually did student teaching? N.O.: Oh, yes. I did. I was down the road here on York Road. I do not remember the name of the school any longer. Robert something, I believe. You did that. You went around to various other schools, staying within the elementary system. You even went to other colleges, actually, to see how things were done. It was very inspiring. I did my student teaching, as I said, with Lida Lee Tall, and also at Arlington Elementary, which is over in the Northwest part of the city. K.B.: What did that entail your student teaching? When you were at Lida Lee Tall, did you observe initially? N.O.: You did. K.B.: Gradually, you’re sort of eased into the teaching? N.O.: Exactly. The first week or so you just got the feel of how things were run and how things were presented in that class. Then she might say to you, “Well, I want you to work up a lesson plan.” Lesson plans were what you had to do. No matter what, you had to have definite lesson plans. She might say to you, “Tomorrow you’ll take opening. This is what you will do. You will do the flag. You will do whatever entailed with opening. Then maybe the next week you can do opening again and now you’re going to do the center or an end of the day activity.” Kindergarten/Primary, before I even graduated, was totally different than some years later. It was playtime. You didn’t do anything really structured, because that came later. You didn’t do that with five year olds. You waited until you got into first grade before you were allowed to present Math or Reading. It just wasn’t done. You weren’t supposed to! K.B.: Was there a belief developmentally that this was not good for children who were five? N.O.: Yes. There really was. I think they really thought that play was much more than the social skills and interaction between teachers and adults and children and getting along and learning how to be a part of the world were much more important than whether or not you could read. K.B.: Did you teach ABC’s at least? N.O.: We did teach ABC’s. We did teach our colors. We tried some order of things. Generally, it was play. There was nap. There was always nap. It didn’t matter what went on. You always had nap and you always had snack. Again, our social skills. Learning how to deal with your family and deal with just being away from parents. Just be away from the familiar. Now we have pre-school. There wasn’t pre-school then. You went to kindergarten. There were very few kindergartens. K.B.: Kindergarten was not required by the state? N.O.: Oh, no. It was not required by the state at all. K.B.: Kindergarten was only half a day? N.O.: Yes. There were two kindergartens. We did a morning and an afternoon. K.B.: That certainly has changed. N.O.: It was the little things, like your left from your right. The things that, maybe, were not taught at home. K.B.: Absolutely and interacting with other five-year olds. N.O.: Today, what we taught in kindergarten, they teach to the three-year olds. K.B.: We’ve moved that up. N.O.: We’ve moved that all the way up. K.B.: For you, not only were you doing your student teaching but you had gotten married. You had a very busy life even while you were still completing your degree. N.O.: I did. Correct. At times, that was very difficult. K.B.: I’m sure. N.O.: The support I had from my husband, who was also a teacher, really helped me. It was difficult at times, not being on campus. K.B.: Yes. You finished your student teaching. Are you feeling confident? N.O.: Oh, yes! I’m feeling good about it and can hardly wait for graduation to get that out of the way and get on with teaching. K.B.: Where did you go? What was your first school assignment? You, too, had a two-year obligation to teach? N.O.: I did have a two-year obligation to teach. It’s very interesting how the first assignment came along. Now, I know you have to make application everywhere and show resumes and show everything to sell yourself. We didn’t have any of that to do. The Kindergarten/Primary group graduates were asked to go to one of the rooms in the college. There they presented the availability of openings. K.B.: Oh my heavens! N.O.: At this school, at that school, at other schools. Did you want to go here? Did you want to go there? Brand new school, Ruxton Elementary, was opening up in the fall. It hadn’t even been finished being built. K.B.: Oh my heavens! N.O.: Where do you want to go? Do you want to teach first grade? Want to teach second grade? Want to teach sixth grade? Where do you want to go? I put my hand up and said, “I want to teach first grade.” That was my job and I got it. Got there and found out that there were two other first grades. They were full grades. They had, I don’t know, 28, 29, 30 children in each one of those. We had more first graders than we had space for. So this beautiful faculty room that they had built became my room. They put chalkboards and desks in there. It also had two bathrooms. I had 14 little children. I think I had the younger group, the youngest ones of them all. They were wonderful. It was such a pleasure. It was good for me because I was starting out with a very small group. It was just great. I didn’t have to deal with 30 children as opposed to 14. That was lots of fun. K.B.: The room was okay? It was adequate? N.O.: Yes, it was a little small in spots, but we managed just fine. As I say, it was a very nice room. K.B.: What do you remember about that initial year of teaching? N.O.: It being a challenge. It definitely was a challenge, because I was a little bit more geared to kindergarten. Even though my other student teaching experience had been a first grade, I wanted to take these children and move them right along. They were the younger group. A lot of them weren’t quite ready. It was a challenge to bring them up to where I thought they should be. K.B.: In your description of kindergarten, this was mostly play and socialization. I guess then the responsibility for all day for a first grade would suddenly be more academic. N.O.: Yes. K.B.: That expectation probably from kindergarten to first grade changed abruptly in terms of expectation for the kids and the teacher. N.O.: Yes. Yes, it did. A lot of them were not ready. A lot of them, as I say, were young and they just weren’t ready to sit at a desk and do paperwork and do the things they needed to do. K.B.: All day. N.O.: All day. K.B.: You were responsible then for Reading or pre-Reading or Reading Readiness? N.O.: We did Reading--very large books. That’s the way they taught reading back then. We had huge books on stands. That’s the way they taught Reading and Math. We had lots and lots of little extras. How to do math with counting sticks and all of those kinds of hands-on activities. K.B.: What we call manipulatives today. N.O.: Yes. It was quite a challenge. I loved these children. They were just precious, each one of them. The next year they decided maybe the faculty room was not quite adequate for what I needed. Believe it or not, brand new school; we were annexed to Towson Elementary. K.B.: Oh, funny! N.O.: The entire first grade was annexed to Towson Elementary. I had a full classroom then. K.B.: Wow! I guess they thought you were capable and ready for that. N.O.: Yes. K.B.: You stayed there for? N.O.: Another year and a half I was at Towson Elementary. Then I was expecting my first child. They decided for me that it was time for me to go. K.B.: That was sort of a policy for the county system? N.O.: Yes, definitely a policy. Yes, they did not want you to be in that position at all. I guess they considered it maybe to be uncomfortable for parents and children. K.B.: Was there a rule that said when you’re five months pregnant you have to leave? Or when you start to show? N.O.: I think there probably was. My daughter was born in May. I stayed until what was considered the January break then, the semester break. Now I know it’s quite different. K.B.: You stayed home and you were still teaching, obviously, but with your own child. N.O.: I stayed home. I had two daughters. When my second daughter was three, the church we were attending asked me if I’d like to come and substitute in their daycare, their Early Childhood program. I said sure I think I’ll give that a try. Then I sent my daughter to the program, and of course she went on, and I stayed for the next 16 years. K.B.: There you go. N.O.: Yes. K.B.: Tell us a little bit about that. N.O.: It was a pre-school in a church setting. There was a lot of religious type background as well. The children were from all walks, all different kinds of children. We had a lot of Jewish children. It was wonderful, these children. But, there again, because we were a private kindergarten, we were able to do much more with the Reading, with the Math, with building their skills. K.B.: How old did the children have to be to come? Could they start at age three? N.O.: They started at age three, and by the time I left they were down to age two. It was quite interesting. The five-year olds; we had a tremendous program. We finally introduced workbooks and the things that the children really needed. We had centers. We worked every bit as hard, if not harder, than I would’ve worked in the public school system. K.B.: That was the kindergarten experience? It was a private kindergarten experience? N.O.: It was a kindergarten experience. It was not first grade. K.B.: Then they’d move into some other school, public or private. N.O.: Then they would go to public school. Yes, that is correct. K.B.: You might have children who had spent several years there before they went on to first grade? N.O.: Oh, yes. Most of them spent at least three years there before they went on to first grade. K.B.: You did that for what did you say? N.O.: Sixteen years. I loved that. That was wonderful. The parents and the children were just wonderful to work with. They would do anything. Being in a church setting, you didn’t have a lot of the facilities and you didn’t have a lot of the hands-on types of things that you had to have for your teaching. Equipment. K.B.: Was that a handicap? N.O.: It was. First of all, we got paid practically nothing. K.B.: I’m sure. N.O.: When we would need something, it would have to come out of pocket. Most of it. The workbooks and that kind of thing did not. If we wanted to do any kind of a special project it was up to you to pay for it. K.B.: To foot the bill. N.O.: It was a wonderful experience. It was a wonderful kindergarten. Still is. Still in existence and still is. K.B.: Oh it is? N.O.: Yes. K.B.: It still remains a private kindergarten. Do you know if it’s a full day now? N.O.: I do not think they have kindergarten anymore, because it’s a requirement for Baltimore County that children go to full day kindergarten. Up until a couple of years ago it was not, so they still had the private kindergarten. K.B.: Very nice. Tell us, if you will, a little bit about your perspective on teaching as a career. Given the experience that you had, what would you say to individuals who would be interested in becoming teachers? N.O.: It’s just the most rewarding profession, I think, because it’s so personal, because you make it personal for the children. I would encourage anybody who has any interest at all. My granddaughter has expressed an interest. I’m trying to get her to come to Towson, but I don’t know how successful I’m going to be. She has definitely expressed an interest and is doing what they do in the high schools now with the internships in the high school and elementary schools. Early Education is what she wants to go into. I think anybody that expresses any interest in being a teacher, it’s just so rewarding. There are times when you think “Well, I never got to that child. I never was able to do what I really wanted to with that child.” I think teaching has changed. I think class sizes and the impersonality sometimes of the teaching and the technology, you just can’t really know what these children are thinking and how they are expressing themselves. I wonder that technology is going to be our downfall in the long run, because these children can no longer communicate with each other. They have to text or they have to email or have many programs worked out for them. I think that’s a lost art when you have the communication with children and through teaching. We did everything we could to make children comfortable with the teacher. K.B.: Yes. N.O.: Children, especially little children, are scared to death of their teacher. You tried to do everything that you could, because they can’t learn if they’re fearful. You tried to do everything you could to make them comfortable and happy. If a child cried all day, which I had a child that cried from September to December every single day, most of the day, it was very challenging. I didn’t know how to get her on board. It was tough. K.B.: Do you remember what finally turned her around? N.O.: I think she just finally got worn out from crying. She was never ever happy in kindergarten no matter what we did, no matter how much I tried to enfold her. It just didn’t work. She was just a miserable little girl. That, I think, is a challenge. Towson and my experience with Lida Lee Tall--I think Towson had taught me to deal with things. Then you get all wrapped up in what has to go on with all the paperwork and with all the grading. I was never really sure I gave the kind of grading I should have, you know. K.B.: I think that is always an issue for teachers. N.O.: It’s very difficult. Being so young, you could really see children that had potential. Some children were still so shy and still so uncomfortable, you never could quite understand where they were going to go. K.B.: Did you ever have students who came back later and said, “Hi, you were my kindergarten teacher?” N.O.: Yes. Yes, I did. K.B.: Occasionally, you get to see what happens later in life. N.O.: Yes. I had a couple of experiences where children have come back as adults or young teenagers and knew me right away. That’s very exciting too. K.B.: With young kids, if you see them in the grocery store, supermarket, they’re just astounded that their teacher actually buys groceries. N.O.: Yes. That’s quite true. K.B.: It’s a good career choice, you think? N.O.: I think it’s a wonderful career choice. No, it’s not for everybody. I think if you have any kind of an interest, it’s worth pursuing. I’m sure there are times when there are people that go into teaching and say, “Oh no,” and even graduate with a degree and say, “No, this is still not for me.” As you say, for women back then it was the way to go. You were either a nurse or a teacher or a secretary. It’s kind of just where you were channeled. I thought “I don’t know if I really want to be a teacher,” but once I got into it, I knew that this was for me. K.B.: It sounds from what you said that your experience at Lida Lee Tall gave you the opportunity to understand that this was a good fit. N.O.: Yes, it really did. Then it was kind of a privilege to be chosen to go to Lida Lee Tall, because it was the campus school. There were, I guess, examples being set and teachers who were top notch teachers conducting these programs. I did. I thought “That’s great. I’m going to Lida Lee Tall.” As I say, I can remember like it was yesterday many of the things that happened in that classroom. K.B.: Nancy, have we forgotten anything, people that you remember or other experiences that you would like to share with us? N.O.: Just that all the years I was in teaching, I knew this was where I wanted to be. I could not envision anything else for me once I took up the career. In many ways, wish that I had gone on to maybe further my education and get back into the system. My husband was a Science teacher and had gone to Towson, as had my mother. This was where I needed to be, I think. I was happy that this was my choice. Towson was wonderful. There were only about 1,700 students when I came to Towson. You knew everybody. You dated upperclassmen and all of that. It was just a very friendly, very family-oriented school. It was just wonderful. I thought it was wonderful. Having been passed on along from my mother’s point of view when it was much smaller, I loved it immediately. I have had many happy memories of classmates. Of course, this is where I met my husband. It was all great. K.B.: Everybody here at that time was going to become a teacher pretty much. N.O.: Yes, everybody was going to be a teacher. My advisor, Dr. McCleary, he was very patient with me, which is something to be said. I don’t think Dr. McCleary was a very patient person. He was very good with me and helped me through some rough spots. I did have great admiration for him. The teachers that were here I thoroughly enjoyed. If you had a problem and you did not go to them, that was your loss. If you had a problem and went to them, nine times out of ten, they could work it out to your advantage. You had a very good rapport with the faculty. I don’t know if that is just indicative of small schools. I just can’t imagine going to a campus where you’re student number 212. I can’t imagine that, because of my personal experiences here with Towson. K.B.: I guess because you were all in education, these could be relationships with each other as students that you probably could continue when you went into the professional world. N.O.: Oh, yes. K.B.: You might stay better connected. N.O.: We did. Even still today. Of course, everyone is older, but you still remember when you did something with this person or when this person was in this school or this was somebody’s Vice Principal or Principal or Teaching Assistant or when you did something together. There are still a few of us around that enjoyed each other and enjoy sitting and talking like this about our experiences. It’s great. K.B.: Anything else? N.O.: I don’t know of anything else. I really did love Towson. I kind of missed a little bit in my senior year being married, but that was great too. It gives you a little bit of a different perspective. I did love Towson. I really did. K.B.: Wonderful. Nancy, I really appreciate your spending some time with us. N.O.: It’s been my pleasure, and I’ve enjoyed doing the interview. K.B.: Thank you. N.O.: You’re welcome.