Monday Memories

Memories of School

I saw this meme at Cathy Knits, and it is supposed to be for Friday, but I’m moving it to my Monday Memories. Cathy is a teacher and her school started August 4!

1. What is your earliest memory of school?

I attended kindergarten in Alameda, California, and I remember a lot about it. It was a one floor plan with canopies outside joining the buildings. We were given milk in small bottles which tasted wretched--why I don’t know, because I like milk. There were African American and Filipino children in my class and I’d never seen either being from rural Illinois.

2. Who was a favorite teacher in your early education?

Miss DeWall was my third grade teacher in Forreston, Il and my favorite. None of my classmates remembered her so I finally contacted her cousin (my age and also a teacher) to confirm it wasn’t just my imagination that she was so wonderful, kind and funny.

3. What do you remember about school “back then” that is different from what you know about schools now?

My first grade teacher would yank on my braids if I got my face too close to my work, and would tie a towel around my head if I talked out of turn. I don’t think that would be allowed today, nor was it appropriate then--other teachers didn’t behave that way. Special needs children were in the classrooms, but often didn’t stay in school because there was no work at their level and they weren't treated well. However, I remember a 16 year old in a 7th grade class. The female teachers all wore suits or dresses and high heels. Classrooms were much quieter. The music teacher served many schools in the district and we'd do a fabulous production once a year; there were no art classes except what the classroom teacher provided in any school I attended, K-12.

4. Did you have to memorize in school? If so, share a poem or song you learned.

We did some memorization, but not a lot. It’s one of the lacks that makes me wonder when the "golden age" of education was. I was always impressed that my mother, who went to school in the 1920s, could recite "Hiawatha" while we were doing dishes. I do remember some songs we learned, like Yankee Doodle, Waltzing Matilda and Home on the Range.

5. Did you ever get in trouble at school? Were there any embarrassing moments you can share?

See above. I was always talking out of turn. Still do. I was a real mess in first grade. I’m living proof you can have a bad start, and still love school. We’d moved in mid-year, and in my new school I stood up to look at someone else’s paper because we were “spelling,” and I was clueless. Although we were reading at the first school, we hadn’t started writing down words as the teacher spoke them aloud. I also had to stay after school one time until I could tell my teacher what a paragraph was. In 2001 my Dad drove me through a cemetery where her gravestone was--but she hadn’t died yet! I think she was over 100 years old when she died a year or two ago.

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