Last night on Youtube we watched some people reminiscing about their first day of school. Well, that brings back memories!
We lived right next door to the school. My mother took me there the first day. And then, to my horror, she left me there. What was she thinking?
My first day in class I found both boring and stressful. Then I found out I couldn’t leave until they said so. What? You mean I’m stuck here?
The principal, my first two years, was Mr. Popke, an angel who loved children. He made the place bearable. He was succeeded by a smarmy character who excelled in tricking little kids into admitting to mischief they hadn’t actually done. He was succeeded by an angry crone who communicated by shrieking at you. It went downhill from there.
As for the teachers, my mother, father, grandparents, aunts, and uncles were all way more interesting than any teachers. What did I ever learn in school that they couldn’t have taught me? Some of the teachers I had–well, the less said about them, the better. I was a homeschooling fan before I ever heard of homeschooling. There is very much to be said for children being taught by adults who know and love them.
Later on in grade school, I had the devil’s own time trying to learn how to add up a column of numbers. “Carrying” really stumped me. The teacher couldn’t solve it. My father sat down with me one evening after supper and taught me how to do it in twenty minutes.
And this was long before public education came to be all about sex, socialism, and detesting your country. It wasn’t toxic then. Just boring. I could have learned all the material a lot faster than I did, but the teaching was geared to accommodate the slower learners.
This was before the teachers’ unions sent delegations to places like Venezuela to praise the dictator and his socialist policies and then, upon their return, teach such piffle to the kiddies.
Public schooling is an idea whose time has come and gone. Long gone.
I home school my kids. It is simultaneously the most difficult yet most fulfilling thing I could have ever been called to do. I am not very good with other people’s kids, but my own is a different story. ❤
I’m sure my mother and my aunts could’ve taught me to read much faster than my teachers ever could. And Grandpa could have taught me history standing on his head (not that I’d have expected him to do that!).
Good for you, Marcia. We need more courageous people like you. That could change the whole direction of the country.
I had several “home teachers” in my childhood; one aunt who was a school teacher and a good woman, other uncles and aunts and parents who shared a lot of good things with me. I only remember a couple of really bad teachers, but I survived them OK.
The only thing I liked about elementary school was recess and lunch break when I could play sports with my buddies. School never made sense to me. If the goal was to work your butt off at something you didn’t like to get material things and toys that don’t satisfy, forget it. Fortunately, I found school academically easy so I managed to have a fun social life. When in college I became born-again, all of a sudden I wanted to know everything about life and the creation my Heavenly Father had created for His elect.
I agree.
School was 12 years of boredom. I learned to read and do math, then spent years waiting for the other kids that had trouble learning those things (probably because they didn’t do a very good job of teaching these things). To be fair, I had some exceptional teachers.
My third grade teacher took an interest in me and helped me a lot. Thanks Mrs, Judge.
There was a long suffering music teach in elementary school that tried to jam some music theory down our throats. I wasn’t interested, but years later, when I took up music, I was able to recall some of what she taught and it has served me ever since. Thanks Mrs. LaVonne
My high school choir teacher, taught me a bit more about music, on her own time and, once again, it has served me well. I visited her a few years ago and thanked her profusely. Thanks again, Carolyn.
In my Junior year of high school, we had a retired Colonel from the Air Force that took time out from his history classes and taught a course in Aviation; basically Private Pilot Ground School. It must have stuck, because that was the only Ground School I ever took and I survived as a pilot which what he taught us about navigation. Thanks Mr. Lloyd.
Unfortunately, these few bright spots were the exceptions and not the rule. Many teachers did little more than go through the motions. I feel that in 12 years of public education, I got about 3 years worth of useful learning and 9 years of wasted time. I told that to an acquaintance whom happened to be a retired teacher and he said he thought that was pretty good results. Perhaps the school system could compensate me for the time wasted out of my life while they dawdled. If they compensated me for that time at my current salary, that would be easily enough to buy a couple of fairly large homes and maybe a nice new car in each garage. 🙂
I wanted to be home schooled, but such a thing was not done back in the sixties. I would have learned a lot more and been ready to do useful work much earlier in life.