Old timers, young folks - what were your days like in school?

[The Straight Story]

Me - we had K-6 and then 7-12, no middle school. The only graduation ceremony you had was 12th grade.

We had school plays where we had everything from Singing about Rudolph to spinning the dreidel and making Christmas cards for our folks.

We also made ashtrays out of clay, and the teachers' lounge was filled with smoke (and our teachers smoked outside at recess while we played I might add).

At Christmas I remember us making snowflakes, christmas trees, etc. out of paper. I remember there being only a few black kids in the whole school (One was Charles Butler, a cool guy whose dad used to beat him with a belt a lot, I always felt bad for him). The best teacher my sister ever remembers having was Mr. Greer, also black - and in our day that was saying something - we grew up (being born in the 60's) with a lot of racial tension. And the one guy mom always told me to be friends with and protect was Mike Beagle, a jewish kid (the only I remember in school - and a little slow as he had a learning disability).

But mom taught us right. Race did not mean you were different, what made you who you were was the content of your character. Our principle was black as well, and mom and her friend Mary cleaned her house for extra money. I still have pics of me and Mike in a 3 legged race, mom wanted him to win so she made sure he was paired with me - I wanted someone faster but she said he needed me. I never understood why until many years later. It was not about winning, but about pairing with someone who needed you the most. We didn't win btw, but we came in 2nd or 3rd (hell, it's been awhile, but I still have those pics of him and I from that day).

In my day we tried to be inclusive of others. Most of us were white bread Christian folks, and that was reflected in our holidays and such. But we included others. Our student body was not overly diverse in my hood (black, white, jewish, christian) but we tried to reflect the diversity of people. We weren't perfect I admit.

We could bring candy to school, baked goods for birthdays, zero tolerance had never been heard of. We did not worry about guns and drugs, etc. We worried about tornadoes, the soviets, etc.

And I still remember learning spanish from two wonderful folks who came to our school. I can still count to ten in Spanish thanks to them :)

Sex education was a one day class where we asked questions of the guest speaker after they were done telling us about the birds and the bees. They told us where babies came from, etc. And if I remember it all rightly I was in the 4th grade. The boys and the girls were in different sessions so we could ask questions relating to our gender without feeling weird about it all (and I still remember my fried Brent asking if you could use a Balloon as a condom...)

We had it all for a short time - you could make ashtrays, have school plays that reflected your faith (or not), sex ed, language education, etc.

People just got along. Even if you did not agree. It was not complex, and local schools reflected local ideals and values.

What is your experience?

[Jed Dilligan]

1. In public and private schools

in the 80s-early 90s (I'm now 34).

In private school I got a decent education but the kids were universally odious. I hated every last one of them. I didn't pay much attention in public school but I was popular. In both we had the usual gangs, drugs, etc. that you would expect today. The teachers smoked openly, that's the only real difference I can put my finger on.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

2. K thru 6, then jr. high 7th thru 9th, then HS.

In high school we were allowed to smoke on campus!

Designer jeans were big, as was feathered hair. We had a pretty diverse student body, as I grew up in suburban DC. Interracial dating did not raise eyebrows, though it wasn't uncommon to hear white kids using the "n" word when talking amongst themselves. A guy who got laid a lot was a stud, while a girl who even rumored to be sexually active was a "slut" or "whore".

I hated gym class. For an unathletic person like me, the good clean fun of volleyball or softball was the Ninth Circle of Hell.

[dysfunctional press]

5. that was the system in our school district as well...

although i was in parochial(lutheran) school k-6, then went to the public jr. high for two years, then i transfered to a new lutheran high school in a nearby town for 9-12. had i stayed in the public school system, i would have had one more year of jr. high, then 10-12 in high school.

[Ron Green]

3. My school district was totally segregated - a high school for whites, and one actually called a

"Colored High School."

With driver's ed, you could get your license at 14 - hence some kids with the right birthdays drove their cars to Junior High School.

There was NO smoking by students at any school, although the teachers had a smoking lounge.

If a kid brought a gun to school, he just kept it in his locker because he was going hunting that evening.

You had to make your decision in the 6th grade between football and band. I chose band, and never had a date throughout my school years. But I'm still playing music, and the football guys had to give up their game a long time ago.

[orleans]

28. what state could you get a drivers license at 14? omg!

(i would have been in heaven! my mom used to take me driving when i was 11 and 12! i had my own car before i had a license at 16. and i was driving it. ah, those were the good old days)

[Ron Green]

40. Texas. Yee-hah! If you'd had Driver's Ed the summer before your 14th birthday

(it was available only in the summer), then you could be fully licensed to drive ANYWHERE IN THE UNITED STATES, by yourself, with a Texas license on your 14th birthday.

I thought it was a great idea at the time.

:scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared:

[grasswire]

4. one of my fondest memories of grade school...

...was in Miss Meek's first grade class. She had a plastic gumdrop tree, and on birthdays it would come out with a gumdrop on each twig and each student got to pick one gumdrop.

And I remember music class in fourth grade -- yes, there were music teachers who did nothing else! -- we learned to sing all the old American tunes: Arkansas Traveler, Turkey In The Straw, Erie Canal, Sweet Betsy From Pike, etc. I've always appreciated knowing the words to the old American songs.

[JDPriestly]

7. You'd be surprised how many kids in L.A. can't sing the

Star Spangled Banner. It is just shocking. Music is an essential part of education in my view.

[Quantess]

10. All music education ever consisted of, was learning the words to patriotic songs,

and if you were lucky, like I certainly was, you got a school-issued, plastic "recorder" and learned how to play Mary Had A Little Lamb. If you could master that, then maybe you'd impress us all with The Yellow Rose Of Texas.

[JDPriestly]

16. My schools had excellent music education programs.

I learned to play a musical instrument (fairly well), Sang in choirs, in the high school musical, learned to appreciate opera and played in the orchestra -- in school programs in the 1950s. We learned lots of folk songs in grade school. It's a matter of values and money. Today, Americans don't have value a musical education for each child. Today's pop music reflects the ignorance of Americans about music. The music of the 1960s was the product of kids who grew up in the 1940s and went to school in the 1950s. We still listen to it today. Musicians of today still compose from the base of the mix of classical, jazz, folk, country and gospel that became the rock music of the 1950s. We are starting to use musical ideas from other countries more and more, but the period of great American innovation in pop music was the 1960s, the product of musicians and young consumers who had music education in their schools in the 1950s.

[Elspeth]

12. Oh come on. NOBODY can properly sing the Star Spangled Banner. "The rocket's red glare" mangles

the throat.

:evilgrin:

[JDPriestly]

17. But they don't seem to know it at all.

Especially some of the kids who have immigrated out her in L.A. When my daughter graduated from junior high, we were supposed to sing The Star Spangled Banner at graduation. Not even the kids knew it. Everyone should sing that in grade school. It's just something everyone should know how to do. It's very hard to sing, but you should at least know it well enough to sing until you get to the notes you can't manage. Besides, I don't think it is that difficult for kids to sing if they have a good music education. I majored in music education. I know how to teach kids to sing. You can learn. Being able to sing makes it easier to learn languages and to speak well and use your voice effectively. It is an important skill.

[Elspeth]

25. And majoring in music ed, you know what the market is right now for that, right?

No money for the arts or music. Maybe this Star Spangled Banner thing is an argument for increased music funding. I'd support that.

[JDPriestly]

27. Yes. What people don't realize is that the big change in our

education occurred during the Nixon administration -- while we were trying to pay for the Viet Nam War and gas, and all the follies of the Nixon and Johnson eras. War costs money. War impoverishes not only the country against which it is waged but also the country that wages it.

[Art_from_Ark]

8. Arkansas Traveler

That was one song we NEVER sang in music class at my Arkansas elementary school! I think that was because the local guy in the song (an Arkansas native) is portrayed as a real doofus (he wouldn't fix his leaky roof on sunny days because it wasn't raining, and wouldn't fix it on rainy days because it was raining). At that time, we were trying to shed our hillbilly/yahoo image that was likely popularized by Mark Twain (in Huckleberry Finn), reinforced by a book called "Slow Train Through Arkansas" that came out at the turn of the century, and even by cartoons such as Bugs Bunny ("Hillbilly Hare") and a Flinstones episode where Fred and the gang inherit a house in "San Cemente, Arkanstone" and find themselves in the middle of a never-ending feud with the Hatrocks. LOL. But we did sing those other songs, led by a full-time music teacher.

[JDPriestly]

6. I went to a variety of schools.

Until the fourth grade, I went to schools in lily white, small midwestern towns. The reading program was great. My first grade teacher used flash cards to teach arithmetic. Although no one had noticed it, I was extremely nearsighted and thought the teacher was playing a guessing game: the cards looked blank to me. I remember that when I was in the third grade, I went into the tiny town library and looked for some books to borrow. I guess I was spending a lot of time looking because the librarian came over to me and started to try to help me out. Finally, she said you've read all the books for your age. I'm going to have to talk to your father about this. I felt like I was being scolded. The funny thing is that many years later, my mother told me that, indeed, the librarian did talk to my father, and he told her to let me read whatever I wanted to read. My father was wonderful. (So was my mother. I had no idea how lucky I was.)

We moved to a fairly large midwestern city, and I went to the fifth through part of the ninth grade in integrated schools that had a great music education program. That was my passion. My sixth grade teacher was wonderful. When we studied Greece, she brought a model of the Parthenon and explained the concept of democracy. I was thrilled and vowed to go to Greece some day. (And I did!) My sixth grade teacher was also responsible (along with my father) for my passion for democracy and justice. She was one of those super wonderful teachers -- a true hero.

We moved to the south where I attended a huge, segregated school. Daily prayer and Bible reading were mandatory. I believe it was the first day of school when my teacher explained that she was an atheist. I had no idea what that meant, but I soon learned: It meant that I, the shyest kid in the class, the Yankee misfit, and a preacher's kid would be the student most frequently chosen to read from the Bible (or at least it seemed like I was). Having to read out loud in front of my homeroom class was very painful for me. I spoke up in my classes, but somehow being chosen to read the Bible was like being pointed out as someone different. The best people in my high school were the Jewish kids. Like me, they were not in sororities -- yes, there were high school sororities -- very snooty ones -- in my high school -- and debutante parties. High school. The worst years of my life. What an ordeal.

[Quantess]

9. Teaching elementary in 2005 was a lot different than it was...

...attending elementary school in the mid-1970s.

My mom showed up at school with surprise home-made cupcakes on my birthday.
Kids these days rarely celebrate birthdays, and if they do, it's with store-bought cupcakes. Even then, the cupcakes need the sniff-test, and principal-approval.

On Columbus Day at school, we drew names to see who would dress up as Indians and who would dress up as Pilgrims, and we made costumes out of construction paper. I was an "Indian Squaw" for a day.

My first Elementary school job was in San Francisco, where that calendar day was called the Indigenous People's Day, or something close. As I worked at a bilingual school, we naturally celebrated the people who were indigenous to California, and Mexico, and Central America, or who at least claimed to be.

[Thothmes]

11. In school from 53 to 65

We had one African American student in my class and two others in the district, all from the same family. Almost every boy and a lot of the girls carried pocket knives. Teachers would often borrow one from a student to sharpen a pencil or clean their nails. In high school, fights were pretty much limited to boys fighting over the same girl. The looser would accept the defeat and that was that. Could hitch hike everwhere in the district.
Could only drive to High school on Fridays. The parking lot had a lot of late 40s & early 50s cars and a sprinkling of Model A Fords No one gave any of the teachers any BS. Most of the male teachers were veterans of WWII and Korea, The shop teacher had been in the 1st ID at Normandy. The Chemistry teacher had spent 18 months in Burma with Merrills regt. Two of them were combat pilots. We knew they could wipe the floor with our butts if we gave them any lip, and would do so if provoked. Girls had to wear skirts with hems at the knee or below. Boys could wear jeans, but without any holes in them and we had to wear collared shirts. We really felt that the teaching staff in the district were dedicated to giving us the best education that our parents could pay for. Bond issues for new schools, equipment or teachers pay always passed. Bond issues for stadiums, swiming pools etc always failed.
A different world I guess.

[raccoon]

13. The schools I went to in the '50's and '60's were crappy. The county

I lived in was one of the poorest counties in one of the poorest states (SC) in the country. I guess that's why sometimes I get pissed off at people talking about how crappy the schools are these days. I'm sure many of them are, but that doesn't mean that a long time ago all the schools were good.

The schools were totally segregated.

We had to rent our textbooks each year. Did anybody else have to do that? Usually the rent was around a dollar.

Girls had to wear dresses to school, even when it was very cold. That sucked.

Boys couldn't wear long hair.

Boys could smoke on campus, with parental permission. Girls couldn't. A lot of sexism like that.

As I've said, the schools were crappy because of a low tax base.

I've heard a lot of transplanted Northerners come to the South and say how much higher the property taxes were back home--and how much better the schools were. You can't have it both ways--low taxes AND good schools.

[JDPriestly]

21. The inner city schools today are pretty violent.

I have two friends who were so seriously injured teaching in their classrooms that they have permanent disabilities. I think that the classroom violence reflects the violence in our culture -- the hopelessness that Americans feel, the frustrations, the anger. I don't think it has anything to do with the teachers or the lack of funding for the schools -- except that the curriculum today does not include music (especially singing) which rewards group work and cooperation. (I'm thinking of rounds, chorale music and instrumental ensemble music which used to be taught in the schools.) Sports reward teamwork, but are essentially competitive.

In fact, just about everything that is left in schoolwork today is the competitive, and that causes a lot of tension. Work in which the whole class works together to make something beautiful brings students together in a spiritual sense. No one values that today. But that kind of work was important in the schools I attended as a child. For example, in one of the small towns where I went to school, the kids cooperated in organizing and riding on a float for the Fourth of July. We staged performances for various holidays. Those activities included everyone who wanted to participate and sometimes everyone whether or not they wanted to participate. Inclusion and interdependence are the keys to getting along as a society.

Children need to have opportunities to be included and include others in activities. Children who don't experience acceptance and inclusion become violent.

[fight4my3sons]

14. I went to school all over the place.

The memories that stand out are playing with that blue polka dot doll that talked in Kindergarten. Was she called Mrs Beasley or something like that? Finger painting and skinning my knees and elbows on the blacktop playground.

Then my mom and stepfather moved us to Midland, Texas of all places. Where the kids called me Yankee and made fun of my accent. The teacher wrote on my report card that I was doing well, but had a hard time understating the dialect. I missed my father terribly. I went to school on one side of the town on year and then we were bused to the other side for the other year. Field days were a big thing out there. Football was huge! I lived across the street from the the Lee High School football field and used to watch the football games and practices.

Then we moved to New Mexico to a very small town in the mountains. I went to a one room schoolhouse for 6th grade. The town minister and his wife were the teachers. They took us over to the church every day and made us sing songs from The Sound of Music (how I hate that movie now). There was one of those things that you run around and then jump on in the play ground. I fell off one day and skinned my back. When that happened I must have yelled "shit!" The minister/teacher took me in the school and paddled me in front of the rest of the students with a board that had holes in it. My mother didn't even spank me. It was awful. Then next year I was bused to a school 1 hr 1/2 away everyday that housed 90 kids from K-12. I went there from 7-9 grade.

I finally moved back to my dad's house in 10th grade and went to a normal high school in upstate NY. Fell in with the 'wrong' crowd. I loved all the different people. Made decent average grades. I think I did alright considering all the crap I went through.

[JDPriestly]

20. Interesting. Sounds like you had a rough time but learned a lot from it.

[The Straight Story]

37. Here she is

[kskiska]

15. Elementary school in Connecticut in 1949-56

I started kindergarten in 1949. Elementary school was K-6 and students had one teacher in one room from 9:00 to 3:15, except kindergarten, which was 1/2 day. There were about 25-30 kids in a class. There was no physical education except for one traveling teacher who'd take us outside to play dodgeball and other games maybe once a month or so. Every so often we filed into a large gym/multi-purpose room with a raised stage for square dancing, relay races, or a play (for which we would carry our chairs in). We could go out for recess in mid-morning for jump rope, hopscotch, marbles, etc., and were allowed outside again after lunch (eaten in an assigned classroom - no cafeteria). Going home for lunch was also an option. I usually went home, though I lived one mile from the school (no buses). After the age of eight I rode my bike, which was left on a pipe rack in front of the school, unlocked. No bikes were ever stolen.

Many teachers (female) seemed) middle-aged or elderly, though they probably weren't, and there were very few discipline problems. I remember my girlfriend being punished for chewing bubble gum by having to sit with the wad of gum on her nose. All in all, I think we received a wonderful education, though quite a bit of it was by rote - copying lengthy outlines from the blackboard. We studied Greece and Rome, details of which I remember to this day. We learned cursive writing using a scratch pen with inkwells and blotter, graduating to fountain pens and ballpoints, which were a new invention in the 50s.

I don't remember anyone being frightened of air raid drills (duck and cover). I met up with an old classmate a few years ago and she also remembered them as an exciting diversion, where we'd be directed to a location where we'd cover ourselves with our coats and wait for the all-clear signal.

We didn't particularly care about what we wore (no such thing as designer clothes), since our parents picked out our clothes, but girls weren't allowed to wear pants, even in winter, and boys weren't allowed to wear jeans. We used to wear wool slacks underneath our dresses to walk to school, then remove them once we arrived. There was absolutely no interest in dating or interaction between the sexes in elementary school until a final tea dance (after dance and etiquette lessons) just prior to entering junior high.

[grasswire]

18. kick -- I want some more of these wonderful stories (eom)

[slackmaster]

19. California public schools were excellent from 1963 - 1975

San Diego's were among the best in the state.

I got a very good basic education; top-notch teachers most of the time. No serious discipline problems. No disruptive students. No real fights.

After graduating from high school I entered UC San Diego as an undergraduate. The registration fee for a California resident at that time was $158 per quarter (costs were heavily subsidized by the state). I finished my BA in 1980, stepping out proficient in Spanish, well versed in science and math, able to communicate well, but into a faltering job market with limited opportunities.

People just got along. Even if you did not agree. It was not complex, and local schools reflected local ideals and values.

Yes, it was like that for me too. How far we have slipped since those golden days.

:argh:

[Nevilledog]

22. Grew up in Albuquerque. Hadn't thought about school in a long time.

The things I remember clearly from elementary school include my second grade teacher Ms. Scott. When declining something she would always respond "Thank you, no." As a kid that made my head spin. Why not just say "No, thank you." We also had a teacher named Mr. Schaefer who had been in "the war". Not sure which war, but whenever a plane would fly low over the school he would just freeze mid-sentence and then turn and walk out of the room for about 5 minutes, then walk back in and start back up with no explanation. We also had a round cafeteria/gymnasium where all the fun happened. Except when we had to climb that damn rope in P.E. I never could climb that thing.

Our middle school was grades 6-8. We had a fantastic French teacher, Mr. Chartier. All the kids loved the old guy and somehow we always talked our math teacher, Mrs. Barnett, into letting us go down to his class after we finished our work. Not sure why she'd let us go, or why Mr. Chartier would let us hang out in his class. We had handball courts and tennis courts that everyone loved to use, all the time. I loved P.E. in middle school, but now that I think about it, the stuff we did would probably not fly nowadays. We used to do gymnastics. Not just tumbling, but used regulation balance beams and uneven bars, and were required to do some shit on those that scare me just thinking about them. Oh, and we used to play floor hockey. I loved floor hockey, even after I got my lip split from being hit in the face with a stick.

High school wasn't that much fun for me. I had decided by that time that I was just way too mature for everybody else and that I was just wasting my time until I could escape to college. Looking back I realize now I missed out on a lot of the goofy good times because of that attitude. Our school had a lot of cool things - an indoor swimming pool, a fantastic photo lab, and all around great facilities. And yes, this was a public school, Highland High. It was also a huge school, I think we had close to 4,000 students and my graduating class was over 1,000. I remember Ms. Daby, one of my history teachers. I'd never had a teacher who was so passionate about what she was teaching, and I credit her for instilling a great love of history that lasts until today. I also remember sitting with friends and keeping score on how many times our chemistry teacher said "like" and "you know" during her lectures. She was a lovely person, just needed to work on her presentation. Low-riders were popular during this time and guys would cruise through the school parking lot at lunch (a lot were older kids who didn't even go to the school). The administration took care of that problem by raising the speed bumps in the lot and we'd hang out in the courtyard during lunch watching the cars get hung-up on the speed bumps and having to use their hydraulics to raise the car so they could get over them.

Writing this has really made me realize how uncontroversial my life in school was, and how lucky that makes me. I don't remember anything about clashes with students over race, or social class. In fact, the only really negative thing that comes to mind was when my asshole Latin teacher accused me of cheating DURING AN OPEN BOOK TEST and my mom getting him in trouble over it. The guy was an ass, and as I was a straight A student and had never gotten in any type of trouble, the teacher was reprimanded by the principal and had to apologize to me in front of the class.

[lumberjack_jeff]

23. In Jr High school

I got up at 4:30 to catch the 5:00am bus to school which started at 6:00am.

7th grade and 8th grade were done in shifts. School for me got out at noon, just before 8th grade began.

They did this because levy failures (partly a result of teacher strikes) meant that the school either couldn't or didn't hire enough teachers to teach all the kids synchronously. Even so, there were always more than 30 kids in each class, often approaching 40.

The PE teacher had a paddle that was about 30" long, made from a 2x6 with holes drilled in it to lessen wind resistance.

One day, Clint Corey (my locker partner and a very humble guy who later went on to become a very successful rodeo star) was checking out the big board on the gym wall on which the school records were posted. He took note of the chin-up record and observed that it didn't seem all that unattainable (like 30 or so). We encouraged him to give it a try. At 31 he stopped, happy. We ran to the teacher to break the earth-shatteringly great news. When we brought the teacher (Mr Larson) and Clint together, Clint denied it - he didn't want a big deal made of it.

[DarbyUSMC]

24. School in Western New York in the 50's.

When I started kindergarten there were morning and afternoon classes. We didn't learn the ABC's or counting. We did learn to tie our shoes and sing songs and recite nursery rhymes. That may be what they learn in preschool now. Unfortunately, we had what were called "A" and "B" grades. The smarter kids were promoted from kindergarten to 1st grade and went into the "A" grade. The others went into the "B" grade. What is most unfair is that throughout school, from then on, they were labeled A or B kids. By 9th grade we melded and absorbed kids from St. Patrick's school (St. Pat's only went to 8th grade.) Homerooms were done alphabetically then and "A" and "B" kids were finally mixed but even throughout adult life, in that small town, if a person from the "A" grade married a person who had been in the "B" grade, people gave each other a puzzled look. Race wasn't an issue but second or third generation Italian Americans were in the majority. My last name was O'Brien. however I wasn't an Irish Catholic, so none of my friends were ever able to come to any functions at my church even though I went with them to various things at their church. (The teaching then was that God was only in the Catholic church etc.) It didn't matter though, we each had our own crosses to bear, as the saying goes.

The teacher that influenced me the most and gave me my passion for reading was Ruth Doty, our 7th and 8th grade English teacher. We had to turn in our papers, written in perfect penmanship with a fountain pen, to get an "ok" from her. If there was one mistake, it had to be done over. By the end of 8th grade I had more education than my own children had at the end of their senior years.

http://mockingbirdhill.homestead.com/myhometown.html

[MorningGlow]

39. Ugh--tracking!

Howdy neighbor--I know what you mean about tracking. I didn't experience that when I was in school, but I am not proud to say that I taught in a heavily tracked district in the southern part of the state in the early '90s! Yes, it was still going on even then. And I know what you mean about how depressing it was. I distinctly remember the "B" kids saying, "Why are you trying to teach us any of this stuff? We're the dumb ones, remember?"

I only lasted a year at that school (actually only lasted a year teaching high school entirely) because it was so awful and so disheartening.

[TCJ70]

26. I was late 80's 90's into the 00's

Started school where we had all kinds of kids. No one made a big deal out of race. Never had to worry about guns/gangs...got offered pot once, turned it down. I went to 6 different schools because we moved around a lot, but I think I'm better for it. My sex ed experience was much like yours: 4th grade, seperated, but the school sent out information to parents letting them know it's coming so I had been prepared in advance by my parents.

[orleans]

29. nice detail/nice post.

i don't have too much time--
but i was k-6, jr high from 7-8, high school 9-12 (as was my daughter)

i left public high school after freshman year (it rated in the top five of the nation's drug abuse list--i figured if i stayed there i'd od)

went to an alternative high school (hippie high--kind of like in the movie billy jack only we didn't live there) it was fucking wonderful.

to a point.

transfered into collage when i was sixteen with a letter of recommendation. at the time, i was the youngest person to have ever attended that particular college.

[Spike89]

30. 64-76 private (catholic) schools

My Dad was a teacher/principal in the public school system (he actually taught K-12 in the juvenile center). However, he wanted his kids to go to the private school. Although a nun in 1st grade tried to switch me to right handed, for the most part the nuns at the schools I attended in Oregon were progressive and dedicated. I went to a Marist high school (it's a catholic order of teaching "monks") and the nuns, monks, and lay (civillian) teachers were pretty good...the majority of the teachers were the brothers and they actually lived on campus, so they weren't in a hurry to get home.

The elementary school I went to was small, 19 in my 8th grade class. There was 1 "main" teacher per grade and a couple of teachers that covered specific classes (PE, health/sex ed). Other than those classes, we didn't really have defined periods. In 8th grade, Sister Theresa, the nun who taught our class, had her masters degree in math. We typically spent 4-5 hours a day on math and a sprinkling of other topics filled in the days. Obviously, classes couldn't be set by level or aptitude with such a small group, so we did a lot of individual projects and a couple of us who did well at math were put to work tutoring the ones who weren't. No surprise, but when we got to high school, we were way ahead of the other kids in math.

I did have one encounter with the stereotypical abusive nun, ironically it was Sister Theresa the year before I was in 8th grade and her "teacher's pet". Another boy and I had gotten into a scuffle and he'd choked me until I passed out. This evidently totally freaked out the teachers, because the next thing I know, I'm in the office and Sister Theresa had me roll up my pant legs to the knee. She beat me with a yardstick (hitting with the narrow part) until it broke. She used another one on the other kid. My legs were black and blue and swollen for about two weeks, I couldn't go to school for a week. I don't know what was actually said between our parents and Sr. Theresa, but she apologized to me privately on the 1st day I came back. Weird, but she is easily my favorite teacher now (not at that time though).

[sandsavage]

31. Way back in the day LOL

Started school in rural Michigan. Little one room school house, outside plumbing(outhouse- two holer) Kindergarten to eight grade. We had wooden tables,straight back wooden chairs. Two kids to a table. We all brought our lunches from home. One boy brought mashed bean
sandwiches, on homemade bread. We all had homemade bread but no mashed bean,that was as tasty as his. Kids would trade him just about anything for those mashed bean sandwiches.As for something to drink. We all drank from the pump in the schoolyard. Yup, one dipper and we all used it. Clothes were not a big issue. No one would have even thought of who had the best or worst clothes. In fact if someone would have made a remark about clothes or who was rich or poor, they would have been jacked up pretty quick. Kids were popular if they were good at foot races, softball, spelling bees, helping the little kids. The older kids really looked out for the little ones. All the boys and some girls carried pocket knives.It was just something the country kids needed for many things. None of the reasons had to do with violence.


You learned so many things. I think it was the set up. The teacher would call each class up front. Starting with the youngest class. We would pick up our
chairs, take them up front and form a circle around the front of the teachers desk. Each class did this. We were able to listen to all the classes. I think expanded our knowledge greatly. Earth Science was the best! Of course it was not called that back then. We all would go to the woods and streams.The teacher would make lists of what we needed to collect. If someone found a snake, frog, insect, track, or unusual plant etc. This was discussed by all of us. We looked, touched, sketched, etc. If it was not alive and on the list we took it with us. All critters were released. We rested on our backs and defined the clouds as to their kind for that day. We even studied the soil, fossils etc. We really got in touch with our environment and learned to admire it and love all that it had to offer. History was fun. We did so many history stories. All got to do this. Acted out our lessons.
little kids looked up to the big kids. Big kids didn't want to let the little kids down. After all they were the little kids hero's.

Halloween was a big event. No bought customs. Lots were made of crape paper. When it got wet the colors ran. We of course got wet on purpose. The paper drooped,costume fell apart but what fun. The parents were invited to all parties. I remember sitting in the monkey swing. Little kids could sit on the bar with long chains. The big kids would push us. The swing bars were all around a pole. There I was going round and round. Yikes! Saw Maw walking down the road for the Halloween party. Had on my crape paper outfit. Jumped out of that swing real fast. She told me not to get on that dangerous thing. My costume caught on something, I jumped and that whole thing stayed hooked to that swing. My prim and proper Maw stood open mouthed and turning red. I was standing there in just my under ware. Not a good day.LOL

We actually graduated from the eight grade. All the rural schools had eight grade graduations. Real big dress up ceremony with all schools attending.
Walked across a big stage, in our best clothes to get our diploma.

Now you might think we had a crappy education. Not so! The state came in with tests to see how we compared to the city kids.This would show what grade level you were as to other kids. The sixth to eighth graders were tested. Almost all of the kids tested at first and second year college. We shared books, paper and pencils. We even used chalk slates. But we were thirsty to learn all there was to learn.

We all walked to school. Big kids picking up the little ones on the way. Sometimes the boys fought over the girls. But no little kids saw it. Back then this was not a sport.
Rambled enough.

[The Straight Story]

32. Welcome to DU!

Awesome story, thanks for sharing it.

Lot's of great replies, and you weren't rambling :)

Schools have kinds taken the fun out of going to them in some ways. Sigh...

[Horse with no Name]

33. Great topic

I went to school with a 1-8 (Kindergarten was optional) and 9-12.
I remember the teachers smoked in the lounge, but not outside. One enterprising teacher was fired for smoking in the classroom using his newspaper as a shield. He was fired in front of all of us, but that is a different story.:)
When I lived in Arizona...we had about 50% white and 20% Black and 30% Hispanic. I remember we celebrated Christmas at school, but we also had a couple of Jewish kids in our class so we also celebrated Hanukkah. We were taught about their customs, got to play with dreidels and light Menorrahs and learned the meanings behind those symbols. They also learned about ours. It was great to share customs and I think it is one thing that has always made me tolerant.
We had art and music classes twice a week, morning and afternoon recess and PE...everyday.
I don't remember kids misbehaving...but they WOULD bust your ass if you did...so that was probably a deterrent.
I remember we had a kid who wet the bed in 6th grade who would come to school smelling like urine...we teased him about it.
Thinking back...I know now he was most likely mildly-moderately retarded. The teachers paid lip service to us teasing him...yet when he went to his special ed classes, if someone misbehaved, the teacher punished us by making us sit in his seat.
I remember in 4th grade, a good friend was Black. Her family was very poor and they had 7 or 8 kids. Her clothes were always tattered and torn, but they were always clean. I was at an age that I didn't understand why she didn't have pretty clothes like mine and I remember trading clothes with her in the bathroom once. I got in trouble. The school called my parents to the school, but I never understood why everyone got so upset...they were just clothes.:(
Personally...I think the deterioration of social skills came when they cut out recess. If kids had a problem, they got in fist fights, a crowd always surrounded them...teachers broke it up and took both offenders to the office. Many times...the next week, those kids were playing together. But they took recess away and parents are so afraid to let their kids learn how to solve problems on their own.
But that is a topic for another day.

[The Straight Story]

36. And ya know, I think it was a good thing as well:

"It was great to share customs and I think it is one thing that has always made me tolerant."

And outside of all the religious things people are afraid one could easily refer to those things (religious holidays) as customs.

My folks weren't worried that I would become Jewish, knowledge is simply that.

I remember learning about pygmies and such in Social Studies in 5th grade - didn't make me want to move to the jungle, we also learned about Shintoism and other faiths.

I got in a few fights, but they were more like wrestling. Recess was 15 minutes and some teachers did smoke outside, it didn't make me want to take it up anymore than Mrs. Small wearing a dress made me want to wear one too :)

I think now a day people tend to be afraid of anything. The RW gets upset if you mention gays or much of anything about sex, the left if you mention anything about Christmas or religion. Everyone wants you to check your beliefs and ideals at the door.

Getting feelings hurts sucks, but in the real world you will put up with people having Christmas trees on their office desk, a Koran, and so on. Maybe if we learned that people express themselves and that such things are ok we would all be better off.

[RushIsRot]

34. I started grammar school in 1946, in Louisiana.

There was no such thing as air-conditioning then. I can recall some very warm days with little other than a fan to move the air around. My blue jeans felt sticky from the high heat and humidity.

I had a teacher in third grade that I loved. She taught us a lot about nature. I found that I had an interest in nature. There was an open space in the middle of our school. It was called a patio, but it was more like a courtyard. There was at least one banana tree growing there as well as some planted wild flowers. This was where I saw my first Jack-in-the-pulpit, and I have always had a fondness for this plant ever since. This teacher also had some goldfish in a flat metal container in the classroom. She conditioned them to come when she rang a small bell. That was when the fish got fed. This dear lady planted some leaf lettuce in that "patio" that we all watched grow to maturity, then she harvested it and made us each a lettuce sandwich using sandwich spread. I had not tasted anything as delicious as sandwich spread in all my young life.

We had very little playground equipment, but there was a large metal post that once held up a merry-go-round. Apparently all the parts to this device were still around because my dad would come to the school on his time off and reconstruct the merry-go-round. We could watch his progress through the window of our third grade classroom. There were a lot of happy children as soon as we were allowed to climb aboard.

In sixth grade, I had another memorable teacher. After I had moved along, she became the Principal. She set aside time for us to build model airplanes along with all the academic things we were taught. She also read to us from delightful books -- a chapter at a time.

There was a small neighborhood store across the street from the school. Of course, we students were forbidden to cross the street. I used to borrow a nickel from the Principal, go to that store and buy an enormous dill pickle that was placed in a small paper bag. The trick was to eat that whole pickle without making a face. I'd repay the loan the next day. I'm certain he knew what I was doing, but he never said anything, and he always let me borrow.

[Horse with no Name]

35. Very cool

I remember in the Spring when the kids started getting Spring fever...the teacher would take us outside and let us have class out there.
He said he figured he should put our bodies where our minds were.:) Smart man.
I had completely forgotten about that.

[RushIsRot]

42. Things would've been a lot cooler with air-conditioning...:-)

[MorningGlow]

38. My school life was like the TV show Freaks and Geeks (guess which I was)

Went to school from 71 to 83, first public school, then Catholic school.

My elementary school was fairly small--two or three classes per grade. I remember our principal was a terrifying man--buzzcut, horn-rimmed glasses, always skulking through the halls looking for trouble to set right. I think even the teachers were afraid of him.

Education seemed fine at the time, although I was a big reader, so I was always ahead of the game (until we got to fractions in fourth grade--then I hit the skids). Gym class was led by a guy who looked like he swallowed a medicine ball. He wasn't too interested in getting us fit, so we played a lot of dodgeball or, when the weather was nice, he'd kick us out the back door of the gym and make us run (or fizzle and walk) around the entire field (four baseball diamonds)--that took the whole gym period. They were still doing the JFK fitness challenge back then, so once a year we'd have to do timed situps and stuff, but the gym teacher didn't seem to care about how well we did, especially climbing the rope--we girls would do one or two halfhearted hops and he'd let us give up just to get it over with.

I loved music class, though--we had a great teacher who loved teaching us songs. I remember her standing at the blond-wood piano, banging away at it, the rhinestones in the corner of her pointy glasses glinting in the light, overenunciating the words to "Fifty Nifty United States" and "Erie Canal" and bopping around to get us energized. It worked on me, not so much for other kids in the class. I still love singing to this day (not so much "Fifty Nifty" though). At Halloween, she used to tell us an absolutely terrifying story of a witch who used to roll her skin into a ball and run around at night as a black cat. Every year. I loved that story even though it gave me nightmares.

Our school district was 100 percent white, which of course was a detriment, but I didn't know it at the time. The most "exotic" student was a red-headed Jewish boy who, every holiday season, was asked to stand up in front of the class and teach us about Hanukkah. Every. Single. Year. It seemed he was in my class every year, although that can't be right--odds dictated he must have been in "the other class" sometime. But I seem to remember him being forced to stand up in front of the class every year, his face beet red and his voice trembling, while he explained about the oil burning for eight days and nights and how to play with the dreidl and what gelt was.

It was a big deal when you moved from the middle of the school (third and fourth grade classes) to the big kids wing (fifth and sixth grade classes). And oh, young romance of the latter grades, when roller-skating parties in the gym after school set our hearts fluttering. After several circuits around the gym (I can't believe they let us put metal wheels on the shellacked floor) to songs by Kiss and other '70s greats (:eyes:), the DJ would put on a slower tune and the girls stood on the sidelines while the boys cruised around looking for a girl to couples skate with. Oh, the thrill of being picked for a couples skate!...which, in reality, was still the boy speed-skating and the girl holding his hand trying desperately to keep up.
:rofl:


Things went to hell in a handbasket when the two parts of our districts merged. Instead of getting to be "kings of the school" in sixth grade, when we finished fifth grade, we were moved, with the sixth graders, to the middle school. The district was shrinking--we were the "baby buster" generation, pre gen-X--and schools were closing. We enjoyed one year in the 100-year-old middle school, and then the northern part of the district was merged with the southern part, and we all ended up jammed into an overcrowded middle school. That led to lots of disgruntled teachers and really violent fights among students from the two halves of the district. By the end of seventh grade, my mom had had enough, and she scraped up enough money to send me to the local Catholic school for eighth grade. I went willingly--GRATEFULLY. I was sick of being threatened with a beating for doing nothing but standing there (the girls were far worse than the boys).

In Catholic school I had a rude awakening--I realized my education had been sorely lacking. I had to scramble to catch up. Went to an all-girls Catholic high school (eeek) but had a kick-ass education that has served me well to this day, nuns nothwithstanding. But that's material for another thread.

[Irishonly]

41. Boy, that's a long time ago

Elementary school was K-6 and there was one black girl in the school. Her mom was the Girl Scout Leader and I remember the first meeting I was the only other girl there. In a few weeks more girls came. I didn't understand because I was raised by liberal parents. We sang Christmas carols for the Christmas program, had Halloween parties and other religions were pretty much ignored. If we had an assembly the principal always prayed. I remember the day John Kennedy was assassinated. We were all led to the auditorium and both TVs were on. That's where we stayed until one of our parents came to get everyone.

We had junior high school, grades 7-9. The 9th graders had a small alcove in the cafeteria where we could eat. I don't remember parties or graduations. When I first moved to California I was shocked at all of the graduations there were, The midwest may have more now but back then it was high school only.

When I went to high school there was a much bigger mix of cultures and religion. Three or four junior high schools came together to form the high school classes. My high school made national news for a riot. A black student had thrown a snowball at another student's car. The student in the car was white. They fought, got the problems worked out and thought everything was ok. They played football together. Unknown to most students the principal decided to expel the black student and suspend the white student. I learned all of this afterward but this is the scene for what happened next. The next morning friends of the expelled students and the suspended student got into a huge fight. When I walked into the student center chairs were flying. At the time it almost looked like every guy in the school was fighting. Someone said they were going home and we all left with the exception of about 50 students. On the NBC news that night I found out we were protesting the expulsion of the black student. Had I known I would have been protesting that but as it was I was scared and took advantage of a day of no school. All the while in high school we would have fights every Halloween and Valentine's Day and I still don't know why.

I did all the high school crap and corruption. I got into a lot of trouble when I wore a black arm band to school on the 1st anniversary of Kent State. They were going to suspend the group of us. My dad came storming up to the school and quite loudly informed them about the right of free speech and he didn't fight in WWII to have his daughter punished for something she was protesting. No one got suspended from my school although in the high school across town the fight went to the SCOTUS.

When graduation came for some reason the republican governor was asked to give the commencement address. His name was Robert Ray although most of my family referred to him as bucket head. The man giving the introduction went on and on and on. Finally, someone in the crowd yelled out that it was a high school graduation and not a damn political rally. The whole auditorium cheered.

I was also in school when the 68 ruling came down about religion. The thing most people were upset about was the capitol building could no longer put out a nativity at Christmas. At the time I wasn't aware of discrimination about religion although I was thrilled when we didn't have to have fish every Friday. If there were Jewish students they didn't share so obviously it was bad. I was young and naive. No one would have dreamed of coming out and I can't imagine the hell they would have been put through. Race relations were volatile and it wasn't until my senior year that sometimes groups would integrate. I was horrified at the treatment of blacks in the south but although there were all races attending my high school there was not a lot of mixing. Drugs were becoming popular and the druggies were ignored. We had the cheerleaders and football crew and I was in the activist group.

My daughter graduates from high school soon. Because of a serious illness she has to finish the semester on IE and will actually finish on her 18th birthday. There is an active GLTB group and kids don't put up with bullying of anyone. The color of skin or religious beliefs (or not) make no difference to my daughter and her friends. Slowly but surely they are starting to wake up to what is really going on in our country. They give me hope.

[LeftyMom]

43. Until 6th grade, I was in a self-contained gifted class and only mildly bored.

Mind, that was at two years ahead of my age level.

Then I started middle school, and there were no gifted classes, and I was officially bored enough to lose my mind, in addition to the usual junior high miseries, which were not helped by being two years younger than my peers.

In high school, I finally figured out that everybody knew I was a good kid and because of that I could pretty much go wherever I wanted without anybody thinking I was skipping class, so I pretty much quit showing up except on test days, and doing any assignments that didn't particularly interest me (which was most of them.) I suppose I should probably say, in order to be a good example to the younger set, that I regret that. Honestly, my only regret is that I didn't realize I could test out of high school. Had I realized that, I could have had a diploma without ever setting foot in school, and gone straight to college, and I probably would have been a lot happier for it.

As for religion? Fucking A, I'm from South Sacramento. If we'd included everybody's religious songs in our little holiday assemblies, they'd have lasted six hours and somebody still would have got left out. And some poor sucker would have had to teach us all how to sing in Hmong. Really, it was so much easier just to sing Rudolph and leave it at that.

Sex ed? In fifth grade we went into another class, with all the fifth and sixth grade girls and the female teachers from the other classes, and we watched a really boring video from some maxi pad company. In sixth grade we did the same, but then back in our class, we got to spend about an hour a day for a week discussing the matter in greater depth with our teacher, while the fifth graders worked on math and pretended not to listen. I remember him telling us that the diagram in our materials was wrong, that a breast didn't have a hollow cavity in it for milk- otherwise they'd flatten out like an empty pool toy- but that the inside was more like a sponge. And that when a baby's born, it's not usually frantic like on tv, that most of it is waiting and all the excitement and yelling is in the last hour or so. We learned a lot more from an actual parent than we did from the very sanitized educational video, and I think we learned more from a man than from a woman, because he didn't take all that stuff for granted and remembered learning it, much of it as an adult.

My junior high science teacher was a single lady, and apparently she caused a bit of a scandal when she went to the drug store and bought one of every birth control device they had. One of my classmates slipped me his number along with the sample diaphragm that was being passed around the room.

My high school health teacher was a good guy. His approach was to give us lots of good information, not to tell us what conclusions to reach from that information. No moralizing, but he gave the impression that sex was something to be taken seriously. he drew foreskins back on the penis diagrams, and explained that in a school like ours, where many of the students came from cultures that left males intact, he thought it was kind of racist to imply with anatomical diagrams that circumcised penises are normal. That was the first time I ever thought about that issue- I suppose my kid owes him one.

Our school really should have redone our holiday schedule to better reflect the community. More than half of the school would be out for lunar new year, and many had events on the days before and after, so nothing could really get done for that whole week.

[Breeze54]

44. They sucked. n/t

[Lorien]

45. Elementary school in the 1970s was like living in a hippie commune

I went to a small private school run by liberal freethinkers. It was ethnically diverse, mostly Jewish, Buddhist and atheist, with a handful of Christians. There were no desks, just a few tables and a large area rug to sit on for group activities. The teachers, who all looked like they were straight off a bus from Woodstock, were always addressed by their first names. They moved the school almost every year; once it was in a church, then a barn, sometimes it was in a forest...we actually did have school in a school building for a while, though it was a creaky old 19th century number that needed a lot of renovation. the "school bus" was a VW van with flower power and peace symbols all over it.

Some of my favorite memories; learning about salamanders while crawling around in old man's cave, our teacher ken reading "Mrs. Frisby and the rats of NIMH" to us under the branches of a huge old oak tree, learning how to use a potter's wheel, performing Macbeth and Julius Caesar on a makeshift stage in our library, and having the principle take me to dairy queen after school the first time I aced a math exam (my worst subject).

Middle school was segregated, so I was bussed into an area of town that was pretty rough. I think the school was only about 20% white, but I think it was a good experience, being part of a minority for the first time in my life.

High school was an alternative school for more advanced students. No sports, just a chess team. It was a fairly stressful experience, and I never really felt like I fit in there (never really fit in anywhere, but that's a whole other subject).But overall I have to say that I'm glad that I never had the typical public school experience.