The things you remember from geade school

[Alpo]

Second grade. First day. Miz Holley asked how many people brought their lunch. Apparently it was just me. She tells me to bring it up front, and she'll twist the top. She clarifies. Bring it up to the front of the classroom, and she will twist the top of the bag to prevent ants from getting in.

 

I reach down and pick up my Zorro lunchbox and hold it up in the air. "Oh. Never mind."

 

Math. Word problem. Joey broke the candy bar in two and offered Bobby one of the pieces. Bobby complained, "You've got the bigger half". Is it possible to have a bigger half?

 

I wasn't sure, so I copied Twila Herron's paper. She said yes, so I said yes. We were both wrong.

 

English. Tenses of verbs. Miz Holley wrote TAKE on the board. Asked someone to come up and write the past tense. They wrote TOOK. Asked me to write the past participle. I wrote TOOKEN. She told me I was correct, but had misspelled TAKEN. I told her I didn't write TAKEN, I wrote TOOKEN. She said in that case I was wrong.

[Michigan Slim]

Second grade. Mrs. Merrit. Trying to make me right handed in front of the class. Ah, no. Lefties rule!

[Pat Riot]

I remember I learned how to spell and check my work...

[Rye Miles #13621]

I remember Debbie Barnes a really cute girl in my 4th grade class! My first crush! She kissed me on the cheek!

[Warden Callaway]

My first memory of school was when I too young to go to school but I went with my older sister.  It was a one-room school. We got there before the teacher and set with other kids on front porch until the teacher showed up.  I remember following behind her as she stepped in the door.  What burned into my memory was the mat of black hair under her nylons! I'd never even considered women having hair on their legs - let alone pig bristle black!  It wasn't until years later that I learned she was just a local kid that had just graduated high school.  

[Imis Twohofon,SASS # 46646]

I remember the first day of second grade. The teacher, Mrs Black said that since we had all learned to write long hand (cursive) we would ONLY write long hand. I had not been taught long hand. It didnt matter we WOULD write long hand. My cursive was horrible, being self taught, I went all the way through K-12 writing horribly. When I got to college in the mid 1960s i was taking a drafting course where we were taught very legible Printing and did all my college work printed. It may have looked silly, but it was readable and was long before word processors. Typewriters were heavy and expensive.

If I had hand written this longhand the readers would swear I was drunk at 7am.

 

imis

[Shotgun Willie Nelson]

I can remember all of my teachers except for my 2nd grade one.

[Warden Callaway]

15 minutes ago, Shotgun Willie Nelson said:

I can remember all of my teachers except for my 2nd grade one.

 

Me two. I only had 3. John Taylor,  Mrs. Astract and Mrs. Underwood.  There was two other kids in my class.  

 

There were only eight kids in whole school the year I graduated 8'th grade.  The next year there would have been only five.  But the year I graduated was the last year of the school - being consolidated into a big district school.  

[Smoken D]

Kindergarten, firetruck comes to school and the firemen helped us up a ladder onto the roof of the school. Then we got to jump off the roof into the firemen's net. Now that was cool, school was only one story tall, but it was cool. Don't think you can do that these days.

Roof was flat top.

[Charlie Plasters, SASS#60943]

I remember the yardsticks getting broken over my head for screwing around. 

[Utah Bob #35998]

I remember the Duck and Cover drills.

[Shotgun Willie Nelson]

38 minutes ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

I remember the Duck and Cover drills.

Ahh Air raid sirens... ours was crawl under your desk.

Really, if missiles come from Cuba, is my back side really gonna be protected under a flimsy wooden chair with a 18inch square of 1/2 plywood covering it?

[Rye Miles #13621]

I had all nuns from second grade through 6th. I can't remember my first grade teacher but she wasn't a nun!

2nd grade, Sister Theophane

3rd grade, Sister Lilian

4th and 5th grade, Sister Mary Francis ( same room two classes)

6th grade, Sister Mary Ruth (also the principal)

[Widder, SASS #59054]

3rd grade:  I liked Rebecca Kilabrew (or Killabrew).   But she like Dwayne Ford.  

She moved away sometime during elementary school but Dwayne and I remained

good friends as he became a firefighter for the City of Knoxville and I worked in the

Civil Service office for the City later in my years.

 

6th grade: Mr Sitzsler.  He was a full time school teacher, part time Southern Baptist Preacher.

He had a pretty daughter and also a son who in later years (20's) picked up a hitchhiker and was 

murdered.

Anyhow, when I was a little feller, my dad once told me that Bunker Hill was my Uncle.  Being that my

last name is Hill, I had no reason to doubt him or even know the difference.

In class one day, during the History lesson of sorts, I announced to Mr Sitzsler and the class that "Bunker Hill

was my Uncle".

Somehow after that, Mr Sitzsler always treated me like a jokester..... 

 

As for girls:  The 'skinny red headed little girl' in the neighborhood grew up to be one of the

prettiest girls you could imagine.  Beautiful actually.   And sweet and nice as

you would ever want to know.  Her name was Charlotte Sellers.

She was always nice but us Stupid Boys didn't pay any attention to her

because she had red hair.

 

..........Widder

 

[Trailrider #896]

My second grade teacher, Miss Mary Flynn, was very strict.  She was old and had a mustache!  But by the "Tarnal, she taught us to read using phonics, when it had temporarily gone out of style!  Bless her memory!

 

I only remember one duck-and-cover drill in my school on Chicago's South Side (when it was safe for people to live there).  But we had 90mm ack-ack batteries, and some of the first Nike-Ajax SAM's (capable of at least knocking down one B-17 drone, according to the film released by the military!) on the lake front.  

[Utah Bob #35998]

42 minutes ago, Shotgun Willie Nelson said:

Ahh Air raid sirens... ours was crawl under your desk.

Really, if missiles come from Cuba, is my back side really gonna be protected under a flimsy wooden chair with a 18inch square of 1/2 plywood covering it?

Cuba was just a vacationland for rich folks and mobsters back when I was in second grade. Missiles were mostly science fiction stuff.  But the threat of Russian long range TU95  bombers seemed very real.

[Blackwater 53393]

I remember changing schools five times from the first through the sixth grades.  Each school had its own culture!   I learned to fight and to reason with equal skill.

 

First grade was the beginning of lifelong struggles with penmanship and discipline.  The first day, we were "doing our letters", using the big fat yellow pencil the size of a baseball bat and the yellow, three lined paper with the wood chips in it!!  I was happily making my Ds when the little, plump, grey haired teacher grabbed the pencil out of my left hand and declared, "Oh! NO! NO! We don't use that hand!!  You must use the other hand!!" ....................I'll say no more!!!  My family moved during the Easter break, but it was too late for me!!!

 

I remember walking home from school in the second grade.  There were a few kids that lived near me and we walked to and from by way of a Con Ed power line right of way. Then we took a state road bridge across the New Jersey Turnpike and followed a side road half mile to the school.  It was two miles.  There were no busses and the alternative was to walk along U.S. Route One for a mile and then pick up the state road that crossed the Turnpike.  On wintery days, a neighbor would haul several of us in her '50 Chevy Fleetline, but we still had to walk home.  On a side note, I learned to smoke during this period.  Didn't quit 'til I was 44!!

 

Third grade was another school and my third grade teacher was .....  let's just say little boys, high school boys, and grizzled old soldiers fantasize about women like that one!!  That woman was beautiful and she knew it!!  She was also a good teacher!!

 

Fourth grade was another school and the teacher didn't like children of German descent!  She didn't treat me badly but she made it plain that she didn't like me at all.  My folks had to go to bat for me more than once over things like disappearing homework or poor grades on really good reports and projects.  It really torqued her jaw when I scored third in the whole fourth grade on the standardized tests that started that year.

 

Fifth grade was back to the school that I was at for third grade and my first male teacher.  He was pretty good at dealing with young alfa males.  Once we figured out the pecking order, he and I got along well and I did really well that year and the next.  Another man teacher for the sixth grade and we already knew each other, but my family had to move halfway through the fall semester.

 

The last elementary school I attended was supposedly one of the top ten schools in the nation and required knowledge and aptitude testing upon entry.  When I was placed in a classroom, the teacher handed me my books and directed me to a seat. All of my books were different from those in the rest of the class.  I asked the teacher why and she told me that I was reading and doing math on a level that they wouldn't even reach by the end of the year.  She treated me like a social outcast and we battled all year!! Come to find out, she wasn't qualified to teach my recommended curriculum.  The principal was embarrassed that I was coming from a run of the mill public school and was so far ahead of his "Top Ten" school.  My sister was a grade behind me and when the school year was over, we moved away to seek better educational opportunities.

 

There are other memories, fond and not so much, but I've recalled some of those elsewhere on the wire.

[Snake River Clay SASS #34984]

5th grade teacher John McGovern. WWII and Korean war veteran. If the class got boring we'd ask a military question and he was good for 2 hours.  Best teacher I ever had. 

[Arkie Lee]

Miss Hill's Kindergarten, Oct. 62.  All the Air Force SAC brats seemed to come down with the flu.  Mom loaded the family station wagon with firearms, camping gear and food.  Didn't see my Dad for weeks.  Mrs. Monticello's 1st. Grade, Nov. 63.  She called us in early from recess and announced the President had been shot and we were being released to go home.

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Beryl Dawson taught first grade.

She was retirement age when she taught my father.

This was an average age for schoolteachers during my grade school matriculation.

She held the entire class back to the level of the slowest student.

I went into first grade reading at a sixth grade level, I used to slip up to the sixth grade library and steal books so I would have some means to maintain my young sanity.

She also did not know Beagle dogs a'tall, we drew dogs and a Beagle's forelegs are set wide apart and she had me draw 'em together.

Each teacher had her unique characteristics; the sixth grade teacher, Beulah Craig, was a disagreeable witch who looked for excuses to use her ping pong paddle on boys' shoulder blades, and if a girl got up without dire need, she'd take the jump rope and tie her to her chair.

I found her grave and decided not to anoint it with second hand beer, though I was mightily tempted:  I instead addressed her husband's headstone and voiced my sympathy for the poor man, and allowed as I could see why he preceded her in death.

[Chili Ron]

Howdy,

Iron pipe monkey bars.

Solid asphalt playground.

Develops grip strength.

Best

CR

 

[Blackwater 53393]

1 minute ago, Chili Ron said:

Howdy,

Iron pipe monkey bars.

Solid asphalt playground.

Develops grip strength.

Best

CR

 

 

And heavy scar tissue on knees and elbows!!  

 

Also! Patches on the knees of your britches!

[Black Angus McPherson]

Fourth Grade teacher - Mrs. Nichols was built like the proverbial brick s#!@house.  I mean, WOW!  In later years I saw a comic in Playboy (Annie something) and I swear the title character looked just like her.  And I was only in FOURTH GRADE!!!

 

Fifth Grade teacher - Mrs. Hessman was a Jewish lady.  I had no idea about that at the time.  Nor did I care.  I used to make tanks out of erasers and mark both the tanks and paper airplanes I made with swastikas and iron crosses.  In fairness I also put stars and roundels on some, too.  I was an ignorant kid who knew nothing about the political connotations of the markings.  I just thought military history/equipment was cool and I watched a bunch of WWII movies and TV shows.  I don't think I'd ever heard of the holocaust at the time.  During a parent/teacher conference my parents apologized to her, but she said she knew I meant no harm to anyone.  Nowadays some poor kid that did the same would probably be expelled, pilloried in the press and thrown in jail somewhere.  Heck, if I were to run for office now, I'd probably be lynched by the press for my past indiscretions.

 

Oh, and I don't recall "Duck and Cover" but we had tornado drills when we would all file into the downstairs hallway (no windows) and sit with our backs to the walls.

 

Angus

 

 

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

Sally Tallbird taught me how to tie my shoe laces in kindergarten in Toppenish, Washingon

[Dustin Checotah]

16 hours ago, Michigan Slim said:

Second grade. Mrs. Merrit. Trying to make me right handed in front of the class. Ah, no. Lefties rule!

Was that a Catholic school??

[Dustin Checotah]

15 hours ago, Imis Twohofon,SASS # 46646 said:

I remember the first day of second grade. The teacher, Mrs Black said that since we had all learned to write long hand (cursive) we would ONLY write long hand. I had not been taught long hand. It didnt matter we WOULD write long hand. My cursive was horrible, being self taught, I went all the way through K-12 writing horribly. When I got to college in the mid 1960s i was taking a drafting course where we were taught very legible Printing and did all my college work printed. It may have looked silly, but it was readable and was long before word processors. Typewriters were heavy and expensive.

If I had hand written this longhand the readers would swear I was drunk at 7am.

 

imis

About the 7th grade the Nuns always complained about my cursive. Finally at a parent teacher conference we settled with the teacher that I could print and she would not mark off for penmanship. I write and eat lefthanded. That is why I asked Michigan Slim if he went to a Catholic school. 

[Dustin Checotah]

8 hours ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

Cuba was just a vacationland for rich folks and mobsters back when I was in second grade. Missiles were mostly science fiction stuff.  But the threat of Russian long range TU95  bombers seemed very real.

That plane (TU95) must of had a long service life because I have seen one overfly the ship I was on in the middle to late 70s. 

[Dustin Checotah]

This story I don't remember but my older sister does. She has about 9 years on me. I was told that I was all worked up for going to school on my first day. To say I was enthused was an understatement. I was up and ready to go. The next day ,day 2, my mom went in to wake me up for school and I said "Again?".  

[MizPete]

18 hours ago, Michigan Slim said:

Trying to make me right handed 

First grade.  Talked my mama into it.  Maybe it helped me but it wasn't until high school biology teacher made us read Scientific American that I understood why I had a spacial orientation problem.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Another stray memory came floatin' up ...

Southern Local School District, Perry County -- Sufferin' Local -- was not the poorest in the state, I think we come in second or third place in that dismal category.

Mr. Charleton, bless his patient and hard working soul, fired the coal furnaces, kept the whole building spotless and rearranged the fluorescent tubes.

We couldn't afford to replace the burnt out fluorescent tubes so he staggered them.

The fixtures ran the length of the ceiling, three or four rows to a room, each one alternated one working tube and one burnt out tube.

This was not an economy move, it was not an effort to reduce the electric bill ... they couldn't afford replacements ... so he stretched what we had, as best he could.

I recall when I'd swipe books from the 6th grade classroom library (when I could slip in when that witch of a teacher wasn't there) they still had several copies of McGuffey's Reader, and it was used as an auxiliary text.

Ohio History books in 8th grade (there was neither junior high nor middle school, you had the grade school and the consolidated high school, that was IT!) ... the Ohio history books were some of the newest in the building, and they still listed DiSalle as Ohio's governor.

School buses were maintained by Red Baird, Red was a Mason and a card player, he showed us a few card tricks I never did master, and he could not weld at all, he could barely braze ... his work was known as Bubble Gum Brazing, as that's what his work looked like.  It held together but it looked awful.

Granddad drove school bus for years, he one time threw Carlo Hermey out the back door for misbehavior.  It was justified, I'll not go into particulars, but you couldn't get away with that today.

I could go on ... such things as Leo Duffy bouncing a 3 inch by 3 inch hardwood cube off a misbehaving student's skull (the man must have been quite a ballplayer!) and finding to my delight I was tall enough to look the third grade teacher in the eye standing flat footed ... and as a high school senior, encountering my fourth grade teacher in Bob Parson's Red and White grocery store, and being utterly amazed at how short and tiny she was ...

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

.I remember how to spell grade

[Alpo]

Jr. High band. Mr. Triplett. He would keep time with his baton on the metal music stand. Tic tic tic tic. If that wasn't enough he had a hammer handle. WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM.

 

Occasionally them in the back - tubas and drums - would not be behaving to his satisfaction, and he'd pick up a blackboard eraser and throw it at them.

 

We got integrated when I was in 7th grade. In 8th we had one black kid in band. A flute whom I shall call Susie because I don't remember her name.

 

One day we were being particularly rowdy, and he had done flung all his erasers, and he finally loses it and says, "Don't none of y'all know how to act like white people!"

 

Then he noticed that black face in the front row and TRIED to fix it, but in my opinion made it worse.

 

"Except for Susie, here."

[Father Kit Cool Gun Garth]

Then there were the ones in class that always cheated!

 

[Michigan Slim]

11 hours ago, Dustin Checotah said:

Was that a Catholic school??

Public. Common practice at the time.

[South-Eye Ned]

I was in second grade in 1965/66.  Our teacher, who was in her 20's, had a huge crush on Elvis Presley; so, she taught us one of his songs, "Wooden Heart".  She told the traveling music teacher that she had taught us a new song, and the former asked what it was.  The music teacher responded, "Wooden CART?!"  Our teacher was flabbergasted that this old woman didn't know Elvis music, and when she was told it was an Elvis song, the music teacher exclaimed, "I don't want to listen to that rubbish!"  She was thinking it was a hip-swivel song rather than a simple, innocent tune.