Our longest serving teacher

Vol 18. Number 01, January/February 2009

By Andie Gatti

With 54 years' continuous employment with the department in its various incarnations, Margaret May is our longest serving state school teacher.

The Atherton resident is on long service leave from Mareeba State School to which she will return in 2009.

Mossman born and bred, Miss May has taught mainly in Far Northern schools with short periods at Townsville's Belgian Gardens and Ingham, and a year's exchange at Westminster in Western Australia.

There have been many changes in teaching since she started at the then Mossman Rural School Training College in 1956.

Year 2 teacher Miss May was contracted to the Department of Public Instruction and had to guarantee she would not marry during her first three years' service.

She and a Year 1 teacher taught nearly 40 students in a single compartment classroom.

'My children sat on long, backless forms at long, heavy desks,' Miss May said.

'They wrote their lessons on slates and committed their work to memory.

'The children in upper classes wrote with pen and ink.'

Miss May said today's students learned from a wider curriculum with emphasis on the environment, real-life experiences and reading as many books as possible instead of concentrating on one reader for the year.

But the most notable change is technological.

'Teachers have progressed from typewriters and Gestetner printers to computers and Xerox printers, from Box Brownie cameras to digital and video cameras,' Miss May said.

'Computers have made a huge difference in the way we teach and the way children learn.

'They have opened up a vast world of information which students can access for themselves instead of the restricted teaching of earlier times.'

Another change is societal.

'When we first started as teachers women weren't expected to get married and if they did they were expected to resign,' Miss May said.

'Our wage was half that of a man's wage.

'I can remember attending a union meeting in 1958 when women were claiming equal pay because we received the same training and taught the same subjects.

'One male teacher said to me, "No you don't. You don't teach football".

'I said, "We could".'

Miss May said she had enjoyed teaching although it was becoming a challenge.

'I've always encouraged and mentored pre-service teachers because when I was training, I recall the wonderful teachers who helped me.'

Miss May said her former teachers had inspired her to join their profession.

'I just loved my teachers particularly my first whom I still meet at reunions,' she said.

'She's in her 80s now. I wanted to be just like her.'

Miss May said she would retire in a couple of years.

'I'm fit. I'm healthy. I played squash until about two years ago. I feel I still have skills to offer.'