Unforgettable School Days – Part 1
This will be the fourth week of the school year for my family. A grandson just started kindergarten, one granddaughter is a senior in high school, four others are in between them. In addition, our two daughters have new teaching positions at two different high schools, one teaching family and consumer science and the other teaching alternative school. Add to that, a daughter-in-law, who runs a day care where she teaches several two to five-year-olds (including our youngest grandson), means I hear a lot about school when we are together. Listening to them brings back lots of memories for me. It also makes me deeply aware of how education has changed over the years.
Table of Contents
School Days – 1st Grade
When I started school, we had no kindergarten and we’d never heard of preschool! My school was a small 1st-8th rural school.
I began 1st grade right about the time I turned six. I’m guessing I didn’t know much more than the alphabet and how to count to 100, if that.
Mrs. Blanche Lloyd was my 1st grade teacher. I don’t know what her age was, but she seemed really old. She was a kind, grandmotherly type with gray hair worn in a bun. I seem to remember her wearing black, lace up “old lady” shoes (a type of oxford with a higher heel) and she always wore a dress. She had a sweet, kind of deep “warbly” voice and I think all the kids liked her.
When I started school, I only knew two of my classmates. I had met Debbie at my mom’s community club meetings but didn’t know her well. The other one, Don, I knew very well because we were cousins and we had spent lots of time together.
As I recall, the focus of the year was learning to read, spell and add numbers. Dick and Jane readers were used to teach reading.
Per Wikipedia – “For three decades (roughly 1940 to 1970), the whole-word or look-say method (also called sight-reading) on which the Dick and Jane readers were based remained the dominant reading method in American schools. The look-say method used a controlled vocabulary and taught readers to memorize the words through repetition. Texts in the Dick and Jane readers repeated words within phrases such as “Oh, see. Oh, see Jane. Funny, funny Jane.”
Phonics-based reading methods came into fashion in the 1970s. Wikipedia gives a good and interesting explanation of the Dick and Jane series.
Sharp developed the main characters of “Dick” and “Jane”, the older brother and sister in a fictional family that included “Mother”, “Father”, and a younger sister named “Sally”, their pets, “Spot” (originally a cat in the 1930s, but a dog in later editions), and “Puff”, their cat; and a toy teddy bear named “Tim”.[5][6][7]
Grade 1 – Before We Read, We Look and See, We Work and Play, We Come and Go, Guess Who, Fun with Dick and Jane and Our New Friends. The Dick and Jane primers taught reading as well as American middle-class values to school-aged children. The storylines described the lives and experiences of a stereotypical American middle-class, white family in their suburban home. “Father” wore a suit, worked in an office, mowed the lawn, and washed the car. “Mother” stayed at home, did housework, and raised the children. “Dick”, the oldest of the family’s three children, was active and well-behaved; “Jane”, the second oldest child, was pretty and carefree. She also helped care for “Sally”, the baby of the family.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dick_and_Jane&oldid=1162043959
My 1st Grade Report Card indicates I had lots of absences. I’m guessing it was from illnesses that children don’t usually have now. I had the chicken pox, mumps, measles and roseola as a child.
I made somewhat average grades. The grading scale was different than what they use now. E=Excellent, S=Superior, M=Medium, D=Deficient (Inferior) and F=Failing. Despite later criticism of the sight-reading instructional method, I became a very good reader as did the majority of my classmates. We were all given newspapers to take home each week called Weekly Reader. I don’t remember assignments from it, but the grade card indicates otherwise. I am wondering what caused my less than perfect grade in health habits!
School Days – 2nd Grade
Mrs. Elsie Dunn was my 2nd grade teacher. She seemed quite elderly with white hair and was much sterner than my previous teacher, but I liked her. I believe she usually wore a blouse and skirt and sensible shoes.
I don’t recall ever seeing either Mrs. Dunn or Mrs. Lloyd anywhere outside of school.
In addition to reading and language skills, I think the big focus was learning subtraction in 2nd grade.
School Days – 3rd Grade
Mrs. Lola Jones was my 3rd grade teacher. I remember her well as she also went to my church. My favorite memory of her is actually when she gave me a hand-stitched picture at my baby shower many years later.
Mrs. Jones was younger than the first two teachers. She was about the age of my parents. She had a wonderful smile. She was strict though. I remember her smacking my hands with a ruler when I mis-behaved (or was that Mrs. Dunn?).
The main new thing I remember being taught in 3rd grade was how to write in cursive. I really enjoyed learning that, but Debbie and Mark always had the best handwriting. It’s hard to believe that cursive writing isn’t taught any more in many schools. This is the year we also learned to multiply and memorized the multiplication tables.
School Days – 4th Grade
I don’t know why, but I don’t have any class pictures after 3rd grade until 8th grade.
My 4th grade teacher was Mrs. Della Anderson. She was probably about my mom’s age. And, like all of my other female elementary teachers, she wore dresses. No female teacher was allowed to wear slacks when I attended school. I did not find that unusual as my mother didn’t wear slacks either, even when home, until I was probably in high school.
The thing I remember the most about Mrs. Anderson was when she jumped up on the heat register with a loud shriek when she saw a mouse scurry across the classroom floor. We all thought it was so funny. The majority of us lived in old farmhouses and seeing a mouse was so commonplace it didn’t bother us.
Educationally, I remember learning how to do division and fractions in 4th grade. I think that was also about the time we memorized all the state capitals. I thought I would never forget them, but now there are some I don’t readily know.
I also remember that I started to care more about my hair and styles in this grade. I have a side bow (black velveteen–it’s absolutely crazy what a person remembers!!) in my hair and a necklace on for this picture. My mom made all my clothes and even though this picture is not in color, I remember the dress being red with a black, red and white print vest.
School Days – School Staff
As far as school staff goes, there are two I remember the best. My cousin, Faye, was one of the cooks. Like almost all the other students, I ate school lunch instead of bringing my own. I remember the food being pretty good. It seems like we had lots of days with soup. There were also homemade rolls and homemade cinnamon rolls. I guess we had somewhat unusual foods too as I remember Don throwing up his hominy with chocolate milk!!
We had a choice of white or chocolate “Sky Go” brand milk in small cartons. At some point in time, I remember they started picturing nationally missing children on the cartons of milk. While I like milk, I’ve never liked drinking it from those small wax-coated cartons!
I also have fond memories of our custodian, T. P. Stephens. He was a very nice older man whom everyone liked.
One of our principals was also my church minister, Rev. Wingo. Later, we had Mr. Pulliam as a principal. I don’t remember anything about either of them. Maybe that’s a good thing.
School Days – Recess
Of course, I have recess memories. We had what I thought was awesome playground equipment that would never be allowed on school grounds today.
My personal favorite was the Giant Strides. There were probably five chains attached to a central pole. At the end of each chain was a handle. I had to grab up over my head to reach the handle. Then I would run as fast as I could, let go and then swing around.
A giant stride similar to the one in our playground. My class found that it was much more fun if the two tallest people in the class, sisters Faith and Maureen, would push us so we could go much higher. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t so fun for them. Because there were people in front and back of the rider, we’d normally just jump off when tired of riding. That often resulted in scuffed up legs.
Another of my favorites was the teeter-totter (see saw). My general goal was to try to bounce hard enough when landing to throw the person on the other end off or at least bounce them into the air.
We had a slide similar to this one except I don’t think it had the handrail on the steps. I guess it was dangerous to have an open platform at the top, but it made it easier to slide down the side poles, which kids did as much as go down the slide. I think our slide went straight down and just ended at the ground. What I do remember for sure is how that shiny metal would scorch my legs and behind on a sunny day!
We also had tall swing sets with wooden seats. The seats made it easy to stand on them instead of sitting. The goal of many was to swing standing until your body was horizontal to the ground or higher. If we sat, again, we wanted Faith and Maureen to push us higher. Poor girls!
Closing Thoughts
Overall, I have pleasant memories of being in 1st-4th grades. It’s where I made life-long friends and began to enjoy learning. What do you think of when you reminisce on those years in your life? Please let me know in your comments. If you enjoyed reading this, check out these posts 12 Years on the Big Yellow School Bus, Brutally Cold Snow Days.
The biggest changes I see from those years for me and those for my grandkids include–
- We had less subject matter crammed into a day’s worth of instruction
- We had little to no discipline problems
- We had less standardized testing–Took an Iowa Basic Skills test once a year
- We did more memorization learning in reading and math
- We didn’t have preschool or kindergarten
- We had larger class sizes (often around 30)
- We went five days a week whereas my grandkids have Mondays off
As always, please consider subscribing to my blog and sharing it with friends.
P.S. Thanks to my mom, I have all these pictures and grade cards!
I always enjoy your updates!! Seeing the pictures of some of our school playground equipment and your comments on them was amusing. As i looked at your class pictures, I tried to remember names of your classmates. Some I do, most I don’t.
I try not to note last names in my posts unless the people are deceased. If I gave the names, you’d probably remember many. Thanks for reading my blog.
We would swing really high and bailout. No one ever broke a bone. We would clamp on roller skates because we had a downhill sidewalk. Those skates sure tore the soles off our shoes after awhile. Thx for the article!
Never had any skates, but did bail out of the swings. Thanks for reading my post.