How a small town High School in the early 60s did it.

[MineralMan]

The high school I went to in a small agricultural town in California, from 1959 to 1963 had just 600 students. It also had three separate academic tracks. It had a vocational track, a standard academic track, and a college prep track. You either got placed in or selected one of those tracks in your freshman year. There were paths between the tracks, but most kids stayed in one of them.

How was the selection done? Well, it all started in the elementary schools, where learning capabilities were assessed and measured. In middle school, too, which we called junior high, further refinements were made in tracking students. The whole system was part of a single school district, under a single administration. A few teachers, like the band and choral teacher, taught all grades, from elementary to high school. Otherwise teachers taught whatever they taught. In elementary school, we had a single teacher for all subjects. In my class, there were three teachers who handled all 100 or so students for each grade. We'd get a new teacher each year. Tracking existed in elementary school, too, in three tracks, with a lot of movement between tracks in those years.

We had standardized testing in those days, too. Not every year, but every couple of years. The results of those tests helped determine your track. Even in elementary school, the tracking began, although we didn't know it was happening. Some kids moved between tracks, and some kids didn't, but just about everyone was trying hard to do well.

The result? Not bad at all. Almost every kid who started in my class in 1st grade was there at high school graduation. Everyone learned to read, do basic math, and got basic academic skills. We had great vocational classes, too. The college prep track sent about a third of my class to college, and all of the folks I know of did OK. Of my class of 104, 60 were at our 50th reunion last year. They all seemed to be doing OK, too, and it was great to see everyone. Despite the tracking, we all knew each other throughout our school experience, and there was not much bullying or other problems on a social level.

Is that how schools are today? If not, I wonder why not. It seems to have worked OK.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. I spent my first 7 years of education in a 1-room country school.

Outhouses, a hand pump for water, a wood & coal stove, and one teacher for all subjects for all 8 grades, like something out of the 19th century. Among those who were in school during the years I was there, 3 got PhD's.

[MineralMan]

2. There was one of those schools in a nearby town to mine.

Starting in high school, those students came to our school. Smart kids, most of them. They did very well.

[spin]

3. I had the same experience you did in a school system in northeastern Ohio ...

in the same time frame. I can't remember one kid who started with me in the first grade who failed to graduate with me, but of course several had moved to different areas of our nation and I lost track of them.

I also don't remember any girl who dropped out of school because she was pregnant and this was before birth control pills. Of course to be fair, when a girl did become pregnant it wasn't widely known. All the girls who started out in my first grade class graduated with me.

My father insisted that I get good grades and treated a C grade as an F.

There was a good degree of discipline in my school but since we had been trained from the first grade that rowdy behavior was unacceptable, we had no problems abiding within the rules. I willingly admit that there were times I pushed the rules to the limit but the limit was tight.

I don't believe that I am exaggerating by saying that my high school education was equivalent to an associate's degree today.

[MineralMan]

4. Thanks. Sounds like a similar school system.

I wonder sometimes whether the problem isn't related to school size in some way. Our small city was small enough that one set of school administrators could operate the entire system as a single entity. We had 30 kids in most of my classes, but even that worked OK, it seems.

Our school was sort of strict with behavioral issues, too, but not oppressive, as I recall. I was the class prankster, too, so I had plenty of contact with the administrators at times. Tough but fair.

Maybe school size and community size plays a role in educational difficulties. I wonder if there's a way to deal with that situation.

[spin]

7. My school system was also small. That might play a significant role. (n/t)

[MineralMan]

10. I think we're close to something here with the

size similarities. Maybe that's the key.

[Frustratedlady]

5. I went to a school K-12 and most of my class started kindergarten together.

We traveled the same road together through high school graduation and pretty much socialized as a group. There were 18 students.

If you had any talents in music, sports or art, you had to be involved. For instance, since I could sing, I soloed, was in duet, trio, quartets (mixed and female) and all the way up to choruses, both female and mixed. Same with band. I played the alto sax and was in jazz band, marching band and all the competitions as soloist and all the way up to band groups of all kinds. We also had to be involved with class plays, operettas and declamatory speech. We basically lived at school.

We put together and edited the class yearbooks, led cheers for sports and manned the snack booths at games. We put on style shoes to show off our outfits we made in sewing. The young men participated in FFA and 4-H to show off their accomplishments.

If there was a conflict between the school board and our curriculum or activities, we presented the problem at school board meetings and fought for approval of our wishes and ideas. We won a lot of them, too.

Needless to say, we were too busy to get in trouble. At our reunions, we discovered that no one had divorced, been in jail or spent time in prison. We were good employees and were able to keep our jobs thru to retirement. Big difference between then and now, sadly.

[MineralMan]

9. Even smaller and richer in experiences, it sounds like.

Thanks.

[madinmaryland]

6. I had a similar experience growing up in NW Ohio.

I was there from 75-79 and actually since it was a consolidated school (K-12 in the same building complex) I was there from 66-79.

We had about 75 in our graduating class, and it seems that our curriculum was similar to yours.

[MineralMan]

8. I think that was typical for schools in

smaller communities, and I hear similar stories from everyone who went to such schools. I think there is something to be learned from that, but I'm not sure what it is.

[Frustratedlady]

11. I think a lot of it is students are a name not a number. You don't get lost in the crowd.

In smaller schools, teachers not only taught the students, one on one, if needed, but the students had to take responsibility to manage time since they were so busy with extra-curricular activities. In the process, they learned punctuality and became comfortable using their talents or learning new ones. You were constantly learning and growing.

From middle school through high school, the teachers were there to teach and encourage. What overload you could take off their shoulders, the better. This gave you opportunities to learn how to set up and organize activities such as fundraisers, science fairs, musical performances and so many other tasks that had to be shared because there simply weren't enough hours in the day for the teachers to handle this load. Imagine the lessons we learned from those activities.

When the load was heavier than what the students could handle, in stepped the parents...usually the mothers in support of the band and musical programs (uniforms, instruments and robes), for instance, plus providing transportation to competitions and helping with fundraisers. One big happy family.

I am in my 70s, but I still draw on those experiences and up pop those wonderful memories. I SO wish my grandchildren could have experienced the same.

[Springslips]

13. Wow, that sound really close to the school I went to in NW Ohio

from 80-92. My class was a mere 20-30.

[malthaussen]

12. I used to sign with my student number as a form of protest.

41414, remember it well. It's an easy number to remember!

I went to high school a decade later than you on the opposite coast. We had the same tracking system but our high school was 10-12th grades, and we had about 1200 kids in the school (of whom approximately two were black). Baby Boom city, most of our classes had 30+ students. The school had just "reformed" before I entered, removing the "honors" track for high-achieving students. Except they didn't really remove the track -- all the "smart" kids were in the same group -- they just stopped giving extra credit for the tougher courses. When I asked why they did that, the answer was something along the lines of not wanting to encourage the kids to feel "better" than their peers. I dunno, this may be a relict of the beginning of the downfall of education.

We did the standardized tests, too. I got into a big argument with my guidance counselor about doing the Minnesota Standard, and she totally lost her cool, screamed at me, and ripped up the test. Which was fine with me, I was refusing to take it to begin with. I was a bit of a pain in the ass...

Our principal gave a speech at the start of one year, saying that most of the "children" in school were fine, well-adjusted individuals, but there were "two percent" who were problems. We immediately formed a group called the Two Percent. Way before Occupy Wall Street. One of the bennies of being singled out as a disciplinary problem was that we got to beat classes every week to do a group thing with the school district psychologist. Field trips, movies, sensitivity training. Hey, anything to get out of class. Ironically, I was already getting plenty of sensitivity training as a volunteer D and A counsellor. We did the same stuff as "discipline problems" as we did to train for counselling. Ah, the 70's.

-- Mal