Teachers are unsung heroes. They spend countless hours planning lessons, grading papers, filling out paperwork, and finding creative ways to make learning enjoyable.

Teachers are not paid enough for what they do, and work doesn’t end when they leave school.

It is a hard job now, and was even harder in the old days.

Work started early

Students from 1st to 8th grades learned together in a one-room schoolhouse.

Teachers had to arrive at 7 am to start the fire in a wood stove, clean the lamps and sweep the floor.

They even made all the pens from feathers quills, called “whittling nibs.”

G.L. Summer, a Lexington school teacher in the 1870s, made his ink from local berries.

Disciplinary measures included popping a student with a ruler on the knuckles or palms or making them write “I will not….” statements 100 times on the blackboard.

I’m okay with bringing this back, only with cursive writing.

The school year lasted around 132 days and from 9 am to 3 pm.

Some teachers lived with a student’s family, a practice called “boarding round,” and sometimes included moving houses once a week.

Education.ne.gov says in 1918 half of all teachers were 16 to 20 years old, and 38% were 21 to 25 years old.

Teachers were unmarried, and some districts even banned married women from teaching.

Today, some mothers send their kids off to kindergarten with tears in their eyes and reminisce on how time has flown.

Other mothers choose to start their kid’s educational journey on the sofa, the kitchen table, or the back yard. They are the homeschooling moms.

Mothers are natural teachers. Why? Ingrained in the mother’s DNA is a deep love for her children.

Mothers teach toddlers essential things: the meaning of the word “no,” how to put on shoes, pick up toys and most importantly, how to use the potty!

The homeschooling route

The homeschool learning environment is a comfortable place to dig into academia adventures. Even though the homeschooler’s home probably has the curriculum and learning materials scattered on the kitchen table, the sofa the floor, or in the car.

Homeschooling is a full-time job.

It can be done if you work from home, like Heather Bowen.

“I’m a homeschooling mom just like you, swimming through the murky waters of ‘trying to get it all done,’” she says on her website lifeofahomeschoolingmom.com .

Chapin resident, Lisa Baghdady, Co-Founder and English Instructor at Dutch Fork Homeschool Resource Center works from home as a professional writer and editor at home.

She has successfully graduated 4 of her 6 children and has 2 children currently under her tutelage at home.

She gave up teaching in public schools and was heading for a position in the administration when she decided to homeschool.

“It was a huge sacrifice to leave a paying job to come home and be with my kids, but I can confidently state that it was, and still is, very well worth it.”

Some of the duties for teachers have changed, but the primary task is the same: educate and love their students.

This is what all teachers do, whether they teach in a public, private, or a home-school every day.

Are teachers superheroes? Yes, I think they are!