From broken crayons to principal: A retired educator reflects on the state of teaching today
By Ashley Carter
ATHENS — Patricia Clifton started her education career in Petersburg, Virginia in 1968, with a class full of 32 first graders at Blandford Elementary. Schools were still segregated. The school she taught at was in a poor district, and they did not have all the adequate supplies that they needed. Clifton said, “I was assigned 10 boxes of crayons, 8 in a box, and I had 32 children. So, to make it even at that point, I divided all the crayons into three parts, and everyone just shared.”
She said there was also a shortage of seasonal construction paper amongst other things. Despite the hardships, she said, “the students were as wonderful as you could expect. Their enthusiasm was robust, and they did not know they were poor.”
She worked at Blandford Elementary School for two years, and during her third year integration began happening in Petersburg. She was chosen to go to a predominantly white school. It was there she saw the issue of a lack of resources that was present at her former school was nonexistent in her new school. She saw that the seasonal construction paper that the first school she taught at so badly needed was turning gray in her new school because it was so much of it just sitting. Clifton said, “I began to see the disparities and that stuck with me until I retired.”
All of these experiences built her to be stronger as her career advanced. She taught in a few states before making her way to Athens, Georgia in 1975. Her first teaching job in Athens was a reading specialist at Lyons Middle School. Clifton loved it. She said, “I had the most fantastic principal.” She later moved on to work as the Coordinator for Elementary and Middle School Education for Clarke County Public Schools.
After lots of hard work, she became principal at Hilsman Middle School. Her experiences in education since her start in 1968 allowed her to take on the principalship role and excel in itl. Clifton said her most favorable experience at Hilsman was over a four year period starting in 1992. Hilsman Middle School changed their curriculum in all of the content areas for all the grades to implement the Olympics that was coming to Atlanta, Georgia in 1996. She said, “My assistant principal and I were looking for something that would unify the entire school and have all the teachers feeling like they were working in the same direction and it is worthy.” There was a schoolwide parade from Hilsman to Cedar Shoals Middle School, and they even had an event at The University of Georgia. She said they started with no money in the school budget, but again, Clifton made a way like she did in 1968 when she first started.
Clifton spent 32 years working in education. She said education was a great fit for her since she was a little girl, especially after her second grade teacher wrote on her report card that she was very loquacious. She said, “I ran home to look it up in the dictionary, and it said talkative.” From that point on, she knew that becoming an educator naturally flowed for her.
Last month, after 15 years away from Hilsman Middle School, she made her way back to speak to me about the about the state of teaching now. She said, “The things teachers are burdened with, they have no say so in that. What comes to the classroom is given to them. They have no say so as far as policies and what tests come into the classroom.” Clifton said, this is one of the factors that leads to teacher burnout. “When you have teachers sit at the table where decisions are made, teachers would be less burned out.”
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There are other factors that lead to teacher burnout, but Clifton believes there is still so much hope for educators. She said, “I don’t believe children change and what we are supposed to do for them changes, we just have to have people put that desire in their heart.” She said this starts with efforts like schools having a unified focus.
Clifton said she has seen it happen many times, and it can happen again.
