The History of Science and Technology Timeline Begins in Typing Class

It would not have been difficult twenty-five years ago to explain to anybody interested that the most important subjects in school were reading, writing and arithmetic. If you were good at math, today you might be able to decipher Keating economics. Keating economics is a mystery to most people with graduate degrees in advanced accounting principles. You had to know how to read because everything you were doing in school required an ability to read. Not to mention, everything in life that would follow. As children, the parents of Barack Obama learned how to read and today their son is running for President of the United States. Finally, writing was critical for all forms of communication and expression. Our political leaders have been able to write down the description of different types of governments and look how far that has taken them.

What I never would have been able to tell you back during the days I spent in junior high, was that I was going to be learning the most important skill necessary for my future years in typing class. My typing teacher was a monster. When she sat at her desk, eating or otherwise, she was able to create what is best described as bizarre Arnold Schwarzenegger sounds. A series of muffled grunts and exclamations with a hint of Austrian accent would have her appearing to always be passing some kind of stone or other by-product. I couldn't exactly tell you where she was from except that I'm pretty sure it wasn't anywhere near my neighbourhood.

She seemed angry all the time. The simplest instructions from her always sounded so burdened. She always appeared as if she would rather be doing something else and that we couldn't possibly understand her instructions. She was right. Often we couldn't understand her instructions but it wasn't due to content, it was because her mouth was always full with something. She could eat continuously. Yet, she wasn't particularly large. I'm sure her family history could be found in any local anthropology store as she seemed to be some form of medical wonder. How tall is Arnold Schwarzenegger you might ask? She couldn't have been more than five feet total. At the time, we came up with some of the best short jokes ever. I couldn't remember any of them now if I tried.

Truth be told, I was never quite sure of her height. She wore a bizarre hat that looked like a diagram of cow parts. The thing gave me nightmares for weeks. I'm sure at one point is was on display at a variety of recent science events but disqualified for it's disturbing nature. It was unclear exactly where the hat began and her head ended so I was never really sure of her height. Yet, that hat never left her head. She would swing when she spoke from side to side like a pendulum in an old grandfather clock and of course, most of the time when she spoke she was eating. We had all brushed up on the Heimlich manoeuvre because we were certain that at any given moment, she would choke. She never did.

Her peculiarities seemed to extend beyond the classroom. When she wasn't shouting at us to be quiet and finish an assignment she had posted on the board, she busied herself with church event organization. When one of my friends tried to have her explain to him what church she belonged to, she huffed something incoherently and shot a piece of French fry onto his shirt. None of us ever asked again. She was a nature nut supposedly and knew every butterfly genus species that existed. Nobody ever tested her on this of course. We were too busy being amazed that she had any compassion at all for any living creature.
Yet through it all, this peculiar woman passed onto us the one skill that would prove most valuable in the twenty first century. She also showed us why our parents believed it was always important to chew with your mouth closed.