My Story
or How I Managed to Survive Fifty-Six Years Teaching High School
by
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One of the experiments in the Senior Chemistry Messel was to make Aluminium chloride by passing chlorine gas over aluminium powder in a long glass tube which was being heated. The equipment was difficult to set up and, in the end, I had two senior girls holding the ends of the glass tube while I applied heat to the tube containing the aluminium powder. Nothing happened for some time and then, with a blinding flash of light, the aluminium turned instantly into aluminium chloride. I don’t know which was whiter, the flash or the look on the faces of the two girls holding the tube as it happened. Nobody was hurt and the girls, to their credit, or maybe because they were frozen with fear did not let go of the equipment. They were as shocked as I was. I never repeated that experiment.
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About the Book
Don Humphrey began teaching in 1955, and he didn’t call it quits until 2010. By then, he was approaching his seventy-seventh birthday, and he’d seen it all—and in this memoir, he looks back at what it’s been like to be a teacher throughout the years. When he first started, beginning teachers were very much on their own. If they were given any help at all, it was done so grudgingly by teachers who felt that they were overworked. One had to sink or swim. One of his earlier experiments for a senior chemistry class involved making aluminium chloride by passing chlorine gas over aluminium powder in a long glass tube. Two girls held the ends of the tube while he applied heat—until there was a blinding flash of light that turned the aluminium into aluminium chloride. The look on the girls’ faces was just as white as the flash, and while no one was hurt, he never repeated that experiment. Whether you’re a teacher, aspiring teacher, school administrator, student, or former student, you’ll enjoy this engaging memoir on what it takes to survive as a high school teacher.
About the Author
Don Humphrey taught for fifty-six years as a high school teacher in the state of New South Wales, Australia. He has a bachelor’s degree in arts and a master’s in education.