#10: Schooling

My last post reminded me how important it is for every child to have adults who invest consistently and fully into their well being. Given that my mom left when I was five and just entering Kindergarten, the female teachers I had in elementary school played a particularly important role in my life. I went to Dixon Elementary School for seven years, had a female teacher each year, and connected closely with each one except for my fifth grade teacher, a large and harsh teacher, whose presence intimidated me. Overall, my elementary school "schooling" provide me not only with an education but also with a safe environment. I was nurtured and found space to develop a sense of self.

I began to write down my most significant memories for each grade of elementary school. What fun! I am extremely grateful to these teachers for their expertise and kindness and know they likely inspired my interest in the profession of education as well. Perhaps my memories will remind you of your schooling for as much as education seems to change in America the framework of schooling remains the same, too.

Half-Day Kindergarten -- Miss Thompson:

• Art Easels; low round tables and chairs; wooden cubbies with hooks for our belongings; a rug for class gatherings; a wooden play kitchen; a bathroom in the classroom; a sink for clean up after doing art
• The competition for a tricycle at recess; jump ropes and red, rubber balls
• Naps and graham crackers and milk for snack
• Memorizing your name, address, and phone number to get a small candy cane at Christmas

First Grade -- Mrs. Luft:

• Wooden desks with chairs attached in rows
• SRA Reading Cards
• How I cried when we made Mother's Day cards, and Mrs. Luft suggested I make one for my aunt
• How Kris Krieger, who lived down the street from me and sat by me in class, drank his school glue and had to be sent to the nurse
• Sharpening pencils with a Sampson manual pencil sharpener attached to the wall by the door with a wastebasket beneath for dumping the shavings; I loved to sharpen my pencil, first fat and then thin; pens came sparingly much later

Second Grade -- Mrs. White:

• Four square and hop scotch
• Learning cursive, letter by letter, first small than capital; practicing on the chalkboard and then on manilla paper both with double solid lines divided by a dashed line; I thought it was very cool that our teacher had a special chalk holder that you ran across the chalkboard to make the lines
• Getting the stomach flu and throwing up in the hallway bubbler; having to go home sick which I never, ever wanted to do, because it felt like a burden to my dad or aunt and uncle (my aunt didn't learn to drive until well into her 60's) who had to come and get me; in the same vein, I was terrified that I might miss the bus home
• Loving art class which was done in the art room with the art teacher instead of in your regular class

Third Grade -- Mrs. Runkle:

• Learning multiplication and division; taking timed computation tests of 50 questions of addition through division to make sure you learned them thoroughly; getting stars by your name on a poster for each 100%; competing to get the most stars
• Kick ball on the playing fields outside at recess beside the dirt, concrete, and asphalt playground with insect structures and box-like concrete climbers that would never pass a safety test today
• Planning to marry the only black boy in school at recess until somehow I got the message at home and/or school that it wasn't a good idea -- can you say racism?; our friendship and our plans fell apart 
• How the entire school assembled in the gym to watch movies like Born Free, fire safety with Dick Van Dyke, and environmental movies from Smokey the Bear, Woodsy the Owl, and the Keep America Beautiful series

Fourth Grade -- Mrs. Erickson:

• How Mrs. Erickson read to us every day after recess for 20 minutes, including the book Watership Down, which I loved
• Researching and making informational books on birds and the state of Wisconsin, including pictures we would color
• Running the 50 yard dash at recess, competing against the fastest kid in class, Randy Roth (I had a crush on him!)
• Loving the school library -- I can still see its layout and shelves now, particularly the sections where I discovered favorite chapter books
• Desks marked with name cards and lifting lids where you stored your school supplies
• Spelling tests

Fifth Grade -- Mrs. Schmidt (we called her "Big Fat" Mrs. Schmidt to differentiate her from the 6th grade teacher Mrs. Schmidt who was slim and petite and also my teacher -- not so proud of that):

• The presidential, physical fitness test -- I hated the chin ups and mile run
• All the math problems on area and perimeter that Mrs. Schmidt made up about her dog's crates and fences; she was my first teacher who yelled at the students and really frightened me
• Diagramming sentences which never made sense to me -- I don't think I ever really learned English grammar until I formally studied the German language
• Scoliosis testing, vision and hearing tests, and vaccines at various times through the years
• Gifted and Talented Class several times a week with Mrs. Navin, a more stoic female version of Mr. Rogers, throughout elementary school

Sixth Grade -- Mrs. Schmidt:

• How biased our gym teacher was in favor of the athletic kids, particularly the boys; how we picked teams, and I was always among those picked last
• Hot lunch always included a carton of milk and hot food, often casseroles, with a veggie; you couldn't leave until you ate everything, so we used to try to shove things we didn't like into our milk cartons while the lunch monitors weren't watching
• Switching classes for math with Mr. Rosenthal (we called him Rosie Toes), who had quite a temper
• Doing a unit on weather and becoming meteorologists by monitoring temperature, barometric weather, etc. on charts long-term and using the data to do science; launching weather balloons
• Overhead projectors and screens; pull down maps

An excerpt from “Spring Glen Grammar School”

Donald Hall

For weeks we learned
the alphabet—practicing it, reciting
             in unison singsong,
printing letters in block capitals
             on paper with wide blue
lines, responding out loud to flash cards.
             Then she said: "Tomorrow
you learn to read."
                              Miss Stephanie Ford
             wrote on the blackboard
in large square letters: T H A T. "That,"
             she said, gesticulating
with her wooden pointer, "is 'that.'"

             Each year began
in September with a new room and a new
             teacher: I started with
Stephanie Ford, then Miss Flint, Miss Gold,
              Miss Sudel whom I loved,
Miss Stroker, Miss Fehm, Miss Pikosky...
             I was announcer
at assemblies. I was elected class
             president not because
I was popular but because I
             was polite to grown-ups, spoke
distinctly, held my hands straight down
             at my sides, and kept
my shirt tucked in: I was presidential.