History, Collaboration, and Creativity . . . An Interview With My Mom (Part 1 of 2).

Before I came to China, I was visiting my mom and decided to go through some pictures. My mom has shoeboxes and shoeboxes of old pictures, along with some albums. So we sat down together at her table and looked through everything. We laughed at hairstyles and marveled at clothing, and I studied the environments of each image. Sometimes the pictures were taken in old homes we lived in as a family, sometimes they were in my grandparents' homes, and sometimes they were in old buildings or schools where my parents used to work. I look at these old images and imagine these characters still living their lives in a parallel universe.

A couple of years ago when I was back living in the United States between 2016 and 2018, I decided to interview my mom about a variety of themes around teaching. She has always been a teacher, only taking time off when I was born to raise my sister and me. Throughout our childhood she volunteered regularly at our schools and, sometimes, substituted for our classes. She went back to work as a teacher when my parents got a divorce, circa 1986. I was in the seventh grade.

When I gave her the following questions to answer on a Google doc, she insisted on writing out the answers in cursive and mailing the document to me. The original handwritten document is in my storage unit in Tennessee, or I would definitely be posting images of it here. I was able to transfer most of her answers to my Google doc. So, below you will find Part 1 of my interview with my mom, Ricki Annette Bailey (Dolce). Enjoy!! (Picture above taken by my sister, Kerry.)

Where were you born?

I was born in Painesville, Ohio. The hospital was Lake County Hospital.

What year were you born? 

I was born in 1946. This was the first year of the “baby boomers”.

Who were your parents? Do you have any brothers or sisters?

Philip Joseph Dolce - father
Mary Helen Monk Dolce - mother

I was an only child. I always wanted a brother or a sister. It wasn’t always fun to be an only child. When I was young, I always pretended I had a twin sister named Vicki.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Terrell, Texas which is 30 miles East of Dallas, Texas. In high school we always stayed in Terrell on Friday nights and went to Dallas on Saturday nights. Actually, we were juniors and seniors when we did this.

What is your most vivid memory of growing up there?

I found it was really fun growing up in a small town. We could walk many places. Everyone knew everyone in town. Much easier to be somebody when you grow up in a small town.

What did your dad do for a living? Where was he from?

My father was a meat inspector. He would inspect several meat packing plants around the area to be sure everything was up to US standards. My father was from Painesville, Ohio which is a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio.

What did your mom do for a living? Where was she from?

My mother was born in a very small community in West Texas called Pattonville. She was many things during her lifetime. Before she was married, she worked at a military base in Childress, Texas. Some other jobs were: switchboard operator, bank teller, and her last job was as a Lincoln National Insurance saleswoman.

What year did your father die? How did he die?

My father died the year I was 11 years old. Actually he died on Labor Day and I turned 11 on September 14th. This was in 1957. He died of a heart attack. He just had a physical a few days earlier.

How did your father’s death affect your mother and your relationship? How did it affect how you grew up?

For as long as I can remember, my mother’s mother lived with us. This helped some when my father died. My grandmother cooked, cleaned, and babysat me. My mom worked full time. It was almost like my grandmother was the head of the household and my mom and I were more like sisters. In fact, my friends always asked my grandmother for permission if I wanted to do something with them.

What high school did you attend? Tell me a story about when you were in high school.

I attended Terrell High School. While there, I was in the "popular crowd" and got to do many things. I should probably say that I was most likely in the popular crowd because I was in a small town. This will probably make you laugh . . . In high school, we had a teacher named Mrs. Kimbrough. She was the Latin teacher. No air conditioning yet, so all the teachers kept their windows open. If you were in Mrs. Kimbrough’s class and a motorcycle went roaring by she made us all pray for the evilness of motorcycles!

Where did you go to university? What did you major in?

I attended college the first year at Arlington State. This school was eventually The University of Texas at Arlington. I attended The University of Texas at Austin for the last 3 years of college. When I first went there, the enrollment was three times larger than my hometown. My major was Elementary Education. My last year I took a class about South American History. That was the hardest class I took while in college!

What was the first school where you taught? How many students did you have? How was teaching different then/how has teaching changed? Is the structure of teaching different? Are there any similarities?

When I started teaching in South Austin, there were no art teachers. We all taught our own art. The students really liked it when we had an art activity. Probably because I really enjoyed it. This was the 1968 class. I don’t recall having a campus art teacher until the late 70’s/early 80’s. When I first taught, we usually had 25 - 28 students in class.

After being away from teaching for 15 years, everything seemed different. Rather than making bulletin boards, decorating rooms and other items like flash cards, vocabulary cards, etc., these items were provided by the school. It may be different in a small rural school or a poorer district. But, I happened to return to teaching in a wealthy school district. When I first started teaching, there didn’t seem like there was pressure on the teacher. Also, discipline problems at school were handled by the teacher as well as the parents. Now, it seems like parents have the upper hand. Districts have a fear of being sued by parents. For several years now, many schools will back the parents rather than the teacher.

Basically I feel the structure of teaching is pretty much the same. Still making lesson plans, giving report cards, and having conferences. Some differences may be limited classroom size, sometimes teaching only one or two subjects in elementary, and teaching curriculum that will enable students to do well on national and state tests.

Can you list all of the schools where you have taught? Including grades and dates?

The following are the districts where I taught and when: 

• Austin Independent School District - Grade 6, 1968 - 1972
• Plano Independent School district - Grade 4, 1988 - 2005; Grade 3, 2005 - 2007

Both of these places are in Texas.

Did you serve any special roles whilst teaching, team leader or something like that? How did that change your focus during the teaching day?

One year I was the team leader. I did not like that at all! I am more of a follower . . . A couple of years Austin Independent School District had all “new” teachers take a handwriting class. I taught that and enjoyed it. For several years in Plano, I was in charge of all textbooks. I liked to do that job, also. Additionally, I was the assistant team leader several different years in Plano. I didn’t mind that.

Do you have any higher education degrees? A masters? Or masters coursework? When you were teaching, what was your educational philosophy?

I only took 6 hours of graduate classes. One course was “Statistics”. The other was a science class. I took many classes each year but not for college credit.

My educational philosophy was very simple. It was to try to reach every child in my classroom in some way so that they enjoyed learning.

Name 5 things you could not start a teaching day without, and why were these items so important to you. (These could range from Sharpies to a cup of coffee, a clean desk to supplies set out for students . . . )

Five things I could not start a teaching day without:

• My schedule for the day
• My plan book opened on my desk
• Materials (teacher guides, papers for students, etc.) all in order and on the table by my overhead
• Warm-up instructions on overhead for when students entered room
• A neat and clean classroom

If I didn’t have the above items done, I felt very unorganized. I never left my classroom without being ready for the next day.

How was your classroom arranged? Did your students work in centers or groups, or were the desks in a row?

My classroom arrangement changed often. A few times we were in rows. Most often it was an arrangement that allowed groups to work together. I always had centers for the students to go visit and do activities that reinforced subject learning.

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Part 2 of my Mom's interview will be featured in a few weeks! If you have any specific teaching questions that you think might be interesting to ask her, please let me know in the comments section below! XO!