My grampa always hated to sing. When he in third grade, in a particular music class, he wouldn’t sing. The music teacher got so angry, that she told him, if he wouldn’t sing he might as well go home. So he walked home! It was almost a mile! When he got home his mom asked him why he had come home. When he told her what had happened, she was so angry that she called the school. Since, obviously, he wasn’t there, she took him out of that school, and put him in a private school. He went to the private school until he was in sixth grade.
If a teacher got mad like that now days, she would probably get in trouble. Also, if she had let him go, she would have been fired when the principal found out. Most people live farther than a mile from school anyway, so he wouldn’t have been able to walk home.
My gramma remembers having to ask what ethnic backround and nationality she was for girl scouts. She remembers being embarrassed because her mother told her to tell the troup that she was an old yankee. The scout leaders laughed at her when she told them. Today, the scout leaders probably wouldn't have laughed at her, because today that would be considered mean, but then, that was the way things were.
My grampa was very good at baseball. He was actually called to play in the minor leagues! His mother didn’t tell him about the call because she didn’t want him to play baseball. Today, a parent might tell them about the call, but then tell them that they might not be able to go, and then later tell him he culdn't go. My gramma remembers being afraid of her father!
The teaching method back then was by rote. That means that you had to repeat things over and over again. My grandparents remember having to repeat the times tables over and over again. Can you imagine sitting in a small tiny classroom full of people that weren’t even in the same grade as you, and repeating the times tables over and over and over again? Today, Most teachers don’t make you repeat them over and over again. Now we have things like fact cards, and games to help memorize them.
Discipline back then was very different also. The teacher always carried a ruler. If you talked or whispered in class, you got hit. If you messed up on the exercise you got hit. If you got caught chewing gum in class you had to stick the gum on your nose for the rest of the day. If you got caught passing notes during class, you had to sit in the corner for the rest of the day
Update: 2003/01/24 05:11:58
Back
