Most teachers these days last no more than five to 10 years in the classroom, but Paul Miller taught math for nearly 80. At one point, he was considered the “oldest active accredited teacher” in the U.S.
His career started in his hometown of Baltimore. It was 1934, the Dust Bowl was wreaking havoc in the Plains, Bonnie and Clyde were gunned down by police in Louisiana, and a thuggish politician named Adolf Hitler became president of Germany.
Miller taught elementary school kids by day, college students at night and his mother on weekends.
“I had to teach her how to write her name and the address of her house,” he says.
His parents, Jewish immigrants from Lithuania, had very little schooling. They had arrived in the U.S. long before the Nazis occupied their country in 1941.
“My parents spoke Yiddish,” says Miller. “They didn’t know any English at all.”