Think back. what things, activities, procedures were in our classrooms ,--Elementary, JH or SeniorHigh. I went to a 3

[debm55]

story school , that had only front steps leading to for all 3 floors to leave or the back steps for all three floors. Coat rooms, Being dismissed by row, Desks been attached to each other. Using the underground tunnel to the church for air raids. What do you remember?

[Ocelot II]

1. Blackboards with chalk and erasers you had to clap to get the dust out.

Desks with inkwells, even though those were no longer used.
Wooden desks with names and comments carved into them, mostly with ballpoint pens.
Library paste that smelled minty and some kids ate.
Reddish sawdust that janitors used to soak up puke.
Learning cursive writing.

[kimbutgar]

3. Here in California they're making kids learn cursive again

It does slow one down to concentrate which is a good thing!

[49jim]

20. I taught cursive

handwriting when I taught third grade (1971-1977)…..I had to model the correct formatting of each letter for my students. That really stuck with me (at 74) I still write in cursive and it’s still pretty good. Not bad for a left hander.

[kimbutgar]

21. My older sister is a left hander also and has beautiful cursive writing!

[debm55]

37. Did they make her write with her right hand,

[kimbutgar]

48. No she was never forced to switch !

One of my Mothers siblings was forced to change and it affected them so our Mother pushed back when they suggested tying my sisters left hand.

[debm55]

50. Good. I remember kids having their left arm tied so the would be forced to use the right. Good for your Mom.

[debm55]

53. So did I and it was the third grade when the transition was made.

[brush]

90. I'm a lefty too, had to shift the paper to the left to get the proper slant to my cursive writing.

I managed.

[debm55]

148. Me too, It was in third grade also

[debm55]

30. That;s good because at the very least you need for legal ,medical to sign your name in cursive.😀

[Mr.Bill]

62. One day in the eighth grade,

The P.E. teacher told us not to suit up today. They led all of us to an unused classroom and told us to sit at the desks. They said there has been a district-wide outbreak of athlete's foot and told us the coaches were going to check us for it. We were told to remove our shoes and socks.

The coaches went around the classroom and had each kid lift his feet up, one-by-one and spread our toes as they looked for evidence of athlete's foot. I can't remember if they found any.

Now while this was a little odd, we took it in stride as something necessary. Except for one little issue. Imagine what what it smelled like in that room when 40 boys remove their shoes and socks. It was evident that a number of us had questionable hygiene habits.

With every minute that passed the odor only got worse. It was like nothing I've ever smelled, and that's putting it mildly. And imagine while the kids only had to experience this for about 40 minutes, these coached had to do this all day long.

Nobody said much about it, and even though they had told us this would be done on a regular basis, they never did it again.

Edit: Sorry, I meant for this to be a reply to the OP.

[debm55]

65. I wonder why? Do you remember the check for lice? This was in elementary. You put your head on the desk and the school

nurse would pull up the nape of hair by neck. She would look , once a month for the lice inspection. I hated it as everyone had to keep their hair down. And when someone would mention lice. you would get this itch in your head. I room full of boys with no socks must have been horrible.

[Mr.Bill]

67. I don't recall any lice inspections.

I know they ro it now at all the schools my grandkids went to.

[snot]

91. i still learn best by writing info down by hand rather than typing it.

I think it makes you process things more fully. I'm glad to know it's being reinstated in at least some places.

[debm55]

139. I agree. ty

[debm55]

5. Yes, I remember cursive was taught in third grade. We were each given a book. and the pink stuff for puke. Our desks had

the inkwells in it. I put my little pack of Kleenex under it and pulled it out from there. Thank you Ocelot II

[debm55]

147. Agree and thank you

[kimbutgar]

2. Chalk boards

Now all schools have whiteboards with erasable markers.

After getting hit with an eraser of chalk in 6th grade by a nun made me hate chalk boards!

[debm55]

8. Went to a Catholic grade school too. Ours was made of slate. One student got thrown into board and slate pieces were all

over the floor.

[debm55]

33. I was sitting next to a student who was joking around. Teacher misaimed and got me in the forehead🙄

[kimbutgar]

34. When it happened to me I was able to get the chalk off my face but not hair

When my mom picked me up and saw the chalk and I told her the nun threw the eraser at me my Mother was furious! A boy behind me used to tug on my two braids and I got tired and hit him and the nun threw the eraser at me! My mother did my hair braids because it was easy and I used to fight with her about her styling my hair that way. She finally got why I hated braids when this happened!

[debm55]

39. Good for you, Kimbutgar. So you didn't where braids again?

[kimbutgar]

49. No I liked buns or a single pony tail if I couldn't wear my hair down.

I substitute teach and I’ve seen a few times girls come in with messy hair and they tell me their Moms wouldn’t style their hair because they had a bad attitude. I smile because I remember that morning fight with my Mother. By 7th grade my Mother made me do my own hair.

[debm55]

140. I aways did my own hair. Just brushed it --nothing fancy. Packed my own lunches too.

[sinkingfeeling]

4. Slate blackboards. Also, there was some church group that was allowed to give us

prizes for the number of Bible verses we could recite. I think they even gave us Bibles. This was in my first and second grade classes.

We had slides, monkey bars, see-saws, and 'merry-go-rounds' for recess.

[debm55]

35. We didn;t have any recess equipment exept for jump ropes. baseball flip it, And a ball for the dreaded Dudge Ball. If

you went to a Catholic school, all "fun" stopped at 12:00, you folded your hands and faced the Ringing Church Bells for the Angelus

[The Blue Flower]

6. mimeograph

remember the smell?

[debm55]

9. It was a nice smell,

[OldBaldy1701E]

123. You should check out what the great Tim Wilson said about those.

The only version that I have seen is in a longer video. But, if you want to check it out...

(It starts in at 10:40, but you might enjoy the entire thing!)

[debm55]

124. thank you. OldBaldy1701E

[walkingman]

7. Do they still have "study halls"? open windows- no ac, paddles, term papers,

typing class, business machine class, mimeograph machines (I can still smell the ink), do they still have "home room"?, civics class, DE class, shop class? book covers?

[Ocelot II]

13. We made book covers out of brown grocery bags

and scribbled all over them. You had to cover your books because they belonged to the school and you had to give them back, preferably not too badly mangled.

[walkingman]

58. Yes, we also used brown paper bags. If I remember right we were fined if we messed up our books

or maybe that was at the library? I can't remember.

[debm55]

125. Our school too

[debm55]

14. Did you use paper bags for your book covers? When I taught kids would buy. No AC. No paddles. I think the Home Ec

classes are gone. That;s were I learned to sew in 7th grade shop, Mandatory swimming classes in 10th grade for a semester other semester "health" Thank you walkingman.

[Ocelot II]

19. The boys had shop classes and the girls had home ec (cooking and sewing).

These were never mixed gender classes.

[debm55]

51. That's true. I always want to take shop but not allowed in Elem or JH. I tool Drafting in HS.

[Polly Hennessey]

41. Those are all the things I remember.

I did my homework in study 📖 hall. We had one in the morning and one in afternoon.

We had a two story building with windows. The windows were always open weather permitting. Also, we had Home Ec. I remember in English class we had to diagram on a chalk board.

[debm55]

77. I liked diagraming. Tried to teach to my students---they did like it

[debm55]

42. Thanks, I changed the title because how the hell would we know. I like all the thinks you mentioned . alot has gone.TY

[RoadRunner]

10. Duck and cover

We thought it was funny. 🤣

[Ocelot II]

12. Yes, the joke was put your head between your legs and kiss your butt goodbye.

[fernlady]

32. Even as a third grader

Even as a third grader, under my desk, looking up at the glass windows of a room with 12 or 14 foot ceilings, I knew this was nonsense.

[debm55]

54. Agree.

[3catwoman3]

84. I, too, at a similar age wondered why anyone thought...

…that hiding under your desk who do any good at all if you were near a nuclear blast.

We girls worried that the awkward positions we had to get into might make our dresses hike up and allow the boys to see our panties. Girls could not wear pants to school back then. that was the case all the way thru high school. I graduated in 1969.

[debm55]

43. We never did Duck and Cover. We would all line up and go to the basement for the tunnel

[Glorfindel]

11. Movie projectors and folding screens.

Collapsible metal water cups. Girls not allowed to wear pants. Hand-held bells.

[Ocelot II]

16. Starting around 7th grade the nerdiest boys were appointed to run the projectors.

There were filmstrip projectors and the big ones with movies on reels. Sometimes the film came off the reel, which put an end to the show.

[grumpyduck]

23. Hey, waitaminnit...

I ran the fimstrip projector in my class because one day the nun had to go do something in the middle of a presentation and i jumped in and advanced it. From that point on, she delegated it. 😁

[debm55]

55. Was that a filmstrip projector or the movie reel?

[grumpyduck]

61. Filmstrip.

The day's equivalent to PowerPoint.

[debm55]

80. Did it make this beeping sound when you had to change to the next picture?

[grumpyduck]

102. Had to think about it for a bit,

but I seem to remember the record player (?) did make a sound. That's what led me to go to the next slide.

[debm55]

126. Same here.Though after many years . i would talk about each slide myself and not use the record.

[debm55]

44. My collapsible was plastic. We weren't able to wear pants until 10th grade. and the hand held bell to tell you to change

classes or the recess was over.

[Jrose]

15. Students and office staff at my grade school and high school used

'Carbon' paper in (manual) typewriters...and even when handwriting reports.
I don't think that's used much, if at all, anymore.

[debm55]

22. No, Now is Zerox machines. Put I do remember the carbon ink tape that I used. OMG if I made a mistake typing I could

never get the paper to line up--used the typing brush and white out, Had to type the whole darn thing up again.

[Jrose]

26. That's why I was so glad when PCs were finally used in offices!

[debm55]

45. In High School we had this machine that would punch holes in these tan cards. I didn't take business, so I didn't know

still don't know what they were.

[Jrose]

52. They may have been the IBM keypunch cards that I think were used

in very early info processors.
My Mom worked in the Pan-Am building in Manhattan (around 60s-70s) and worked at a keypunch machine which put holes in a pattern in yellowish cards.

[debm55]

59. That sounds about right. Why were holes used?

[Jrose]

60. Those holes might have been spaces for whichever numbers or letters

should be read from a printing surface, while the unpunched areas were skipped. That's what I would imagine that coding was for.

[fernlady]

72. exactly right

You got that exactly right. I have one taped up by my computer. I started out my computer career with these things. It would take a whole box of them to run a simple tray, and Lo Betide if you dropped the box!

[debm55]

75. Thank you fernlady

[WestMichRad]

94. I still use carbon paper occasionally

To transfer a curved shape drawn on paper to wood stock, in preparation for cutting it with a band saw or jig saw.
‘Tis handy for that!

[Rustynaerduwell]

17. We had a smoking lounge for students!

It was the seventies after all.

[debm55]

25. In senior High we didn;t have one, Kids would walk off the school grounds and smoke in the woods.That was in the early

70s.

[nitpicked]

29. My high school had a senior courtyard

I'm sure some students lit up in there.

[debm55]

46. We didn't our recess was in the cafeteria.

Last edited Sun Jan 21, 2024, 05:28 PM - Edit history (1)

[Mr.Bill]

64. Same thing at my high school.

Seniors only.

[Rustynaerduwell]

66. We had a Seniors' Lounge (No Smoking) and a separate smoking lounge- All invited.

Seemed so normal back then.

[yellowdogintexas]

117. the "smoking lounge" was the side entrance to the building. Boys only

girls had to smoke in the restroom. It was a nasty place in the first place, throw in the smoking and the disgust level was over the roof. I walked in there one morning and barfed up my breakfast. (and the red dust appeared as if by magic)

[asiliveandbreathe]

18. Wooden desks with ink wells..and we used them..

Richard sat behind me and shook ink from the pen on my beautiful white blouse..so vivid a memory..desks secured to the floor..blackboard, chalk, dusty erasers, mimeograph printer in the office, sweet smelling ink..hand rolled printing..we even had crest toothpaste hour, we all got toothbrushes, small cup of water and we brushed..(can just imagine what the kids of today would do with that)!!!..3 room school, 1- 6 grades..3 teachers..and one, the fifth and sixth grade teacher, was the principal..
Alphabet ran above blackboard..one row, small letter a-z, and second row, A, B etc.
Richard survived...LOL

[debm55]

27. That is funny. Our desks were attacked to each other. Our seats were attacked to someone's desk behind us. So if the

joker in the back decided to move his desk the whole row would move back. Same thing with the with the first person in row the whole row would move up. I remember one kid kept moving his desk a little at a time and eventually getting to the door. and the whole row
followed. Teacher, 90 year old , was at her desk sleeping.

[asiliveandbreathe]

31. That is so funny!! I can just imagine the row of desks moving..

..

[debm55]

83. It was like a giant caterpillar

[lastlib]

24. I remember the GIANT slide rule in the math classroom....

(of course it was before electronic calculators....) I wish I HAD one, but they're ungodly expensive on e-bay.......

[debm55]

57. I remember that. Could never figure it out. Went with dad to buy him a calculator at K--Mart. It was in a class case

that a sales person had to unlock. Now you can get them at the dollar store.

[lastlib]

76. A slide rule really is all about adding and subtracting.....

(common logarithms, which are just numerical exponents)--that's all they do. But that's a "proxy" for multiplying or dividing the numbers themselves. To multiply two numbers, you simply ADD their "logs", and the result is the "log" of the product of the two numbers. In math terms, log(A)+log(B)=log(C)=log(A+B).

To divide one number into another, you SUBTRACT the "log" of the divisor from the "log" of the number you're dividing--and the result is the "log" of the actual division result. log(C)-log(B)=log(C-B)=log(A). Easy peasy.

[nitpicked]

28. Pencil sharpeners

Attached to the walls.

[debm55]

78. Nitpicked---I remember that

[WestMichRad]

96. Still have one

… and use it!

[sakabatou]

104. The ones with the hand cranks? Yeah, I remember those.

[DBoon]

36. The PeeChee folder

Quoting Wikipedia, "It became popular for students to deface these figures, often with scurrilous doodles and thought balloons"

[debm55]

79. Hahahahaha---I had that one. I love that quote from wiki.

[Diamond_Dog]

38. I remember duck and cover

Once or twice, in first grade.
My first grade teacher also read us stories out of the Bible first thing every day. And this was public school!
Green chalkboards. Erasers that someone had to go outside and clap together to clean.
Kids who acted out got sent to the office to get paddled.
Outdoor recess every day unless it was pouring rain, then we had recess in the gym.
Kids in the upper grades got to help out in the cafeteria doling out food or taking lunch money and giving out change. This would have been sixth grade. I did the latter and it made me feel very grownup and important. I sat at a little desk right inside the door to the cafeteria and took the lunch money and put it in a metal box. Lunch was 30 cents and milk was 5 cents. I also got to sit in the school office and answer the phone when the secretary was out sometimes. This was also in sixth grade. I guess I was well prepared for a career as a cashier or a receptionist.

In Jr. High girls were required to take sewing (which I hated with a passion) and cooking. Boys had to take shop class. No boys or girls ever switched around to take the other gender’s class. It would have been unheard of.

[bamagal62]

40. The cafeteria food

Was home cooked everyday. Lunch was delicious. I also remember we had a “milk break” everyday.

[debm55]

68. Yes. it was in my elementary school too, but that changed in JH and HS, Did you have a bathroom break? We would only be

allowed to use the bathroom during this time,

[Wonder Why]

47. Back in my day,

Writing in cursive in Ancient Greek

Chiseling test answers on our stone tablets

Using quill pens and having to find a Quill Bird if we lost them.

One cave schoolhouses

Duck and hide under our shields in case of Soviet arrows.

Professors who spoke only Aramaic.

Learning the true meaning of peace and sharing from Israelis and Arabs.

Outdoor activities that included gladiator training

Sex education watching the dinosaurs and mammoths

Learning that stupid new Latin language

Learning math from the Pyramid builders

Learning easy subjects like history (3 page book), geography (one small map that showed a hill), geology (four elements - one was fire) and astronomy (2 planets)

DEI classes that included Neanderthals.

Ah! The good old days of wooden ships and iron men!

[debm55]

127. hhahahaha funny

[NotASurfer]

56. Typing on manual typewriters

And the year after I graduated the school district bought a dozen bleeding-edge PCs and started teaching word processing instead of typing. No erasers, no ribbon maintenance, no carriage return levers

[debm55]

63. NotASurfer. That's a bummer.

[snot]

92. Remember carbon paper?

[debm55]

100. I hated it. PS love you name

[WhiteTara]

69. Latin and square dancing

[debm55]

74. Latin is good to learn. Did you have coed gym classes for the square dancing?

We had coed for swimming,

[WhiteTara]

116. no coed, just the square dance class

and we didn't have a swimming pool.

[sakabatou]

105. I never figured out why we learned square dancing

It's just not used here in NorCal.

[WhiteTara]

111. coordination and movement?

[sakabatou]

112. Maybe, but there are other dances that can fill it in

[WhiteTara]

113. probably, but this was in the 50s

[sakabatou]

114. I did square dancing in the NINETIES!

[WhiteTara]

115. intro to dancing with partners?

What grade were you in? I think for me it was 6th grade.

[sakabatou]

121. I don't remember, but it was in middle school, I think

"intro to dancing with partners?"

No idea. If it was, no one said it as such.

[sakabatou]

146. Same grade, I think.

I found more joy in the self-defense week.

[RobinA]

145. I LOVED

square dancing in gym. It was actually fun, unlike all that team sports stuff I didn't care about. Volleyballzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Niagara]

70. Activities, events and procedures that I remember from elementary school.

In Kindergarten, we only had AM or PM classes, there was no such thing as all day Kindergarten. We also had a giant alphabet in a circle that we sat on as we had no desks in Kindergarten.


For the rest of elementary school from 1st grade and up, we had actual individual desks that we sat at and school was all day.


I remember chalk boards with erasers, the teachers having this 5 line wooden chalk holder to demonstrate cursive writing and sentence structure.


I remember watching films with projector screens and using film reels. Sometimes our teachers let us rewatch the movie backwards while the film reel was rewinding.

I remember having Book Fairs in the late summer/early fall. There wasn't any parents trying to get the Book Fair or any books banned.

In the spring time, we had a contest to name the up coming spring carnival. The school carnival was always fun, with water dunk tanks, cake walks and so much more.


I remember the SRA Reading Laboratory and I was placed high in the SRA Reading Laboratory no matter what grade that I was in. I remember doing the SRA's even into high school.

[NNadir]

71. I remember Helene kicking up her leg while kissing Terry in the high school production of "Damned Yankees."

I think at the time I would have given anything - not that I had much to give - to be Terry.

Helene of course, was 100% unaware of my existence. She graduated the year before I did, and life went on.

Life went on...

Far more important things than the dream of kissing Helene followed. If she's still alive, she's an old woman now and frankly I had forgotten about her existence until I had to reflect on the strange reality that I was once in high school, blissfully unaware of the world at large, and to be clear notable only for my lack of education coupled with arrogance. In other words, I was more or less a Republican, if I remember well, happily too young to vote.

[Turbineguy]

81. Pamela Brown

[NNadir]

86. I used to play that one in clubs, cheating by playing it with a slide, because well, I was never going to be Leo Kottke.

I lived that song many times over, way beyond Helene, lots of "Helenes," and so I had to play it, to have a rendition.

But, again, I was never going to be Leo Kottke.

Of course, very few people other than Leo Kottke can be Leo Kottke.

I wasn't going to be Tom T. Hall either, but I sure know enough to know something about Pamela Brown.

Thanks.

[rsdsharp]

73. I remember many of the things others have mentioned --

the wooden desks with unused ink wells in elementary school; the examples of how to write letters posted above the blackboard. When were started learning cursive, every kid had to purchase the same pen for $1, so that you learned the proper “grip.” It didn’t take on me. Neither did cursive.

The junior high was two stories. Built in the 1920s, it had marble floors, walls and stairways. The auditorium had a full stage, a full fly system and an orchestra pit. The lunchrooms were in the basement. There was also a long, narrow room down there that had a hi-go where student council members played records at lunch, and kids could dance. It was always in long lines; boys on one side, girls on the other. That is how dances in my hometown looked for at least three generations.

My algebra II teacher — the head football coach used metal chalk holders. When there was a test cheating scandal in the spring he fired that thing across the room. Fortunately, he didn’t hit anyone.

My high school was different from most. It opened in 1961; my brother’s class was the first to go all the way through. On the first day of classes, members of the sophomore through senior classes were bussed from what had been the combined junior/senior high to the new high school. Each student was given several books to carry, and that’s how the library was moved.

The class rooms were laid out in three circles. The class rooms were around the outside of the circles, and were slightly wedge shaped. The study hall and library were in the center of the 500 circle, the art department and AV department were in the center of the 600 circle. The third circle, where I never went was band, orchestra and choir.

The entrance to the building opened into the cafeteria. Beyond that were the manual arts areas — wood shop, metal shop, auto shop, etc. To the right was the gym. To the left was a wide hallway that led to the circles. About 50 feet down the hall was an area called the crossroads. The yearbooks were usually titled “Crosswords.”

The music circle was to the left, the 500 circle straight ahead, and the 600 circle to the right. In the center of the crossroads was a large, circular, multiple, water fountain called the bird bath.

The senior class president my sophomore year had been in a motorcycle accident the previous year resulting in an amputation of the lower part of one of his legs. He came back on crutches, and in a fit of temper, beat the hell out of the fountain with a crutch. During my entire three years in that building that fountain never worked.

[Ocelot II]

82. It just occurred to me that kids who went to school after blackboards were replaced

with whiteboards and ink markers never got to understand the true meaning of the phrase "fingernails on a blackboard" because they never heard it. Fingernails on a whiteboard don't SCREEEEEE like fingernails on a blackboard, or even the chalk if you pressed too hard.

[lastlib]

85. In high school, I remember we did an earthquake drill...

When a horn sounded, we all got under our desks and covered our heads/neck until the all clear came.
Smart-aleck me, When it came, I told my teacher I wasn't coming out--there might be aftershocks!
For some reason, she didn't think it was as funny as I did.........

[sakabatou]

106. Earthquake drills here too.

[lastlib]

108. Did you have aftershocks in any of them? n/t

[sakabatou]

109. I think we just waited until the all clear.

I don't remember any drills taking place in post 5th-grade.

[bucolic_frolic]

87. Purple stencil reproduction of "handouts" with alcohol and a rotary machine

I don't remember what they were called. The process was more interesting than most of the classes. I learned nothing in high school. It was torture of the mind by pseudo-intellectuals.

[debm55]

99. A ditto machine is the rotary machine I never used the gel type that was used in elem. school, The ditto machine had a

special paper and a liquid chemical added to the drum along with the paper attached to the outside. You could "run off' alot of different papers . Then Zerox took over. After 40 years of teaching, I loved the Zerox. No smell, no smell, fast.

[mike_c]

88. damn good drugs, lol

[debm55]

101. The liquid chemicals were terrible or you talking about people drugs---I"m so confused--

[snot]

89. I got a great public school education.

This was in a town with a long history of socialist government (ues, it's in the U.S.). We had relatively high income taxes but a fantastic school system, fantastic public infrastructure, fantastic parks, etc.

In school I had the opportunity to take up to 6 years of any one or more of French, German, Spanish, or Latin; advanced English; calculus more advanced than the intro course offered in the college I went to; "shop" and "home ec" (wish I'd taken both); music and visual arts; and even driver's ed; in addition to the usual slate of history, biology, chemistry, physical education (including dancing – and I wish we'd had more of that and less of competitive sports), etc.

"High" tech was just beginning to make its way into my school: you could use automated recordings to help learn foreign languages. One language teacher I had was lazy and parked us in those booths as much as possible. I learned more from them than I did from him. My other language teacher was a drill sargeant-type and never asked us to use the labs; I learned much more from her.

Far worse than the "language labs" was "New Math," taught via a tv rolled into the classroom. You couldn't stop the program to ask any questions; if you had trouble at any point, the rest of the program went right over your head. It set my math comprehension back by at least a year.

We didn't have a stadium. We didn't have a pool. You don't need those things in order to get fit, learn how to be part of a team, or any of the other skills supposedly conferred by participation in sports. But we had good libraries.

Students were assigned to help out with various chores around the school. A janitor did the heavy cleaning but, e.g., I was recruited to wipe down the cafeteria tables after lunch and to re-shelve and straighten books in the library.

By and large, it wasn't vocational training; it was acquiring basic tools, learning how to question, work, and learn. And it was the best possible preparation for the rest of my life.

Sorry to sound like an old fogey, but I'm really stumped as to what they teach nowadays.

[yellowdogintexas]

119. your town sounds a lot like Yellow Springs Ohio.

I have a couple of good friends who grew up there and it sounds very similar. They had high taxes but great schools

[snot]

93. Also, the school newspaper

was run entirely by two unsupervised students and was published on a mimeograph machine – remember those?

[debm55]

137. Oh our school had a student newspaper staff. Also had a teacher mentor.

[brush]

95. Fire drills, everybody filed outside. Field trips to Shamrock Dairy where we got chocolate milk. Mmmmm.

Three years of Latin in high school...it was good because I learned how to study as we had a home work assignment everyday to translate our Latin assignments into English the next day.

Wish I had taken Spanish too as I grew up in Tucson, Az, 60 miles from Nogales, Mex. It would've been so easy to become bi-lingual as many classmates were Mexican-American and I would've gotten plenty of practice using the language.

My younger sister did just that and became a high school principal of a local high school in a Mexican-American neighborhood. She did her interviews in Spanish and got the job.

[WestMichRad]

97. Heck, we had fire drills where I worked

Of course, we worked in chemistry labs and were close to a chemical production facility… so fire drills and mandatory hands-on fire training were taken pretty seriously!

[brush]

98. Same here at work too...at a newspaper and a university.

[consider_this]

103. Chicken fat...

yes, every morning after the pledge in my elementary, they played 'chicken fat' over the intercom and we all did calisthenics next to our desks. Kinda fun. I did NOT like the Presidential Physical Fitness tests - timed sprints, climbing ropes, various fitness things I was not good at, so did not get the cool presidential patch that many kids merited.

[debm55]

129. I remember Chicken Fat, but we did it gym.

[sakabatou]

107. News/announcements on video

This was later scrapped as it took much longer than over the PA system.

[debm55]

130. Ours was scrapped too.Took to much time to set up. I did like the program they would have ever morning on the News of

the Day. It was nationally produced .

[AmBlue]

110. Fire drills, girls' white gym suits, gymnastics at P.E.

I loved the library and art class in elementary school and had some really exceptional teachers. I loved the smell of construction paper and tempera paints. Also, our cafeteria food was darn good and the lunch ladies were really nice. I loved doing gymnastics at P.E. and spent much of my time (even after school) doing cartwheels, back-bends, and splits. Mom didn't appreciate me doing cartwheels in the living room, however.

I was an easy-A student and was asked to be a Cadet Aide (hall monitor) and that gave me the privilege of being dismissed from class 5 mins before everyone else. Those of us selected were so proud!

There was no duck & cover, only fire drills where we all lined up and went single-file out to the basketball court until the bell rang to call us all back in.

I remember being very distressed in middle school about being required to change into those white one-piece gym suits at P. E. (especially because of just beginning menstruation!!), having to change clothes in front of other girls I didn't know, and then they wanted us to shower too! Sadly, it all made me hate P.E.

In high school, I took wood shop and was just one of two girls in a sea of boys!! I had a great wood shop teacher named Mr. Love‐‐ he was so kind and knowledgeable. I love woodworking still today! I enjoyed home ec too! I couldn't believe I was able to get an A+ while having fun cooking and sewing. My first sewing project was a halter top... probably in 1971, give or take a year.

[debm55]

131. Enjoyed your post. Yes we had the white gym outfits too. Ours were two piece. They made us all take communal showerswith

Last edited Tue Jan 23, 2024, 03:39 PM - Edit history (1)

the gym teacher watching to see if everyone took it. If you had your period there were individual showers. I hated gym. especially dodge ball.

[AmBlue]

144. Thanks DebM

I enjoy your thought-provoking questions, and seeing everyone's answers!

[jmowreader]

118. A trophy case for science awards that was bigger than the one for sports awards

Which you wouldn't expect since the two closest universities to St. Maries, ID, are 60 (Gonzaga) and 70 (the University of Idaho) miles away. But for some strange reason we were feared at the regional science fair in Lewiston...we sent a bunch of kids to the national science fair and won it a few times. The man who created the rocket motor SpaceX uses on the Falcon 9 rocket went to St. Maries High School.

On the other hand, the only sport St. Maries was ever good in was volleyball.

[debm55]

138. Yes the trophy cases. Ours was for sports.

[10 Turtle Day]

120. I also went to a Catholic elementary school

for a few grades. My dad was a Marine so we moved around a lot. This school had grades 1-8 and was located in a small town that was mostly Italian. The kids were probably 90% Italian with just a handful of Irish and Polish kids in the mix. We rode a bus but most kids lived close enough to walk and went home for lunch. No cafeteria so we had to bring our own lunches. Except on Mondays, when several Italian moms cooked meatballs in the school kitchen and we could buy a meatball sub for lunch for a quarter. The kitchen and lunchroom were in the basement, as were the restrooms, and I could overhear the moms talking in Italian as they worked whenever I had to use the restroom. And we could smell those meatballs cooking throughout the school all morning! The subs were to die for and I have a fondness for meatball subs to this day.

One Friday my mom forgot and packed a bologna sandwich in my lunch. A nun saw my dilemma and took me to their convent about a block away and made me a peanut butter sandwich in their kitchen because Catholics weren’t supposed to eat meat on Fridays. I was scared to death of the nuns but she was very nice and sympathetic about the situation. I suspect they did this often to save kids from sinful lunches and for poor kids who would otherwise go hungry.

[debm55]

133. That was nice of her. I went to Catholic grade school also. Always, fish stick Friday. as our school had a cafeteria, Do

remember stopping recess at 12: 00 when the church bells rang, face the Church with folded hands to say the Angilus?

[10 Turtle Day]

141. No, I don't remember saying the Angilus at noon.

We stood beside our desks every morning before classes started and said prayers, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Once a week we walked to mass at the church down the street during school hours. If we forgot our little uniform kerchief to wear to church the nuns would make us pin a Kleenex over our hair with bobby pins.

[willamette]

122. Simulated cars for Driver's Education

Everyone took Driver's Ed in 10th grade, and each student had a car with a wheel, gas, and brake pedals. They played a film with various obstacles and turns, and we all braked when a child ran out into the street after a ball. I think insurance companies had something to do with providing the simulators and film setup. We learned the rules in the Department of Motor Vehicles booklet. On weekends, we'd go out in real cars in gaggles of 4 students per instructor.

[debm55]

128. We had something similiar. 10th grade, a group of 4 were taken out in a car, Driver's Ed teacher had a brake pedal on

his side. This class was one semester. The other semester we took the book stuff from the DMV of PA.

[willamette]

143. Yes, the extra brake pedal - very reassuring

[debm55]

150. It wasn't in my case, when I hit the gas pedal instead of of the break, We went into a ditch and car had to be hauled

out,

[willamette]

154. Oh, no!

The exact situation for which there was an extra brake pedal ....

[jpak]

132. May baskets

A wicked good time waster and the teacher shared the candy from her basket.

[debm55]

134. Jpak, never heard of this , but it sound very nice and great tasting.

[jpak]

135. Everyone brought candy for the May Basket

In secret from the teacher.

When everything was ready, some kid would holler out "May Basket!" and the teacher chased us all over to tag one of us, who could then tag the next kids, etc.

Once everyone was tagged, we went back to the classroom to eat the candy.

Not a bad way to waste a school day

[debm55]

136. I love the concept. Thank you for posting.

[Ocelot II]

151. I'd forgotten about those!

We made them out of paper, put dandelions in them and left them on neighbors' doorsteps!

[yorkster]

153. I remember those very faintly.

I think we took them to a local nursing home...

[LibinMo]

142. The long cylindrical metal fire escapes you slid down.

We loved the fire drills And every once in awhile the teacher would have us bring used wax paper bread wrappers from home to sit on when we slid down. Bring an extra wrapper and you could slide twice! It was supposed to keep the fire escape clean and slick. This was in the late 40's.

[debm55]

149. That was unique. I would like that.

[get the red out]

152. "The Conservation Man"

In my elementary school (in Kentucky) the conservation man would regularly give presentations to the 5th and 6th grades about wildlife, the forest, and gun/hunting safety. You could go to conservation camp in the summer if you wanted and learn all that as well as how to properly shoot stuff. I wasn't interested, but a couple of my friends went, and had fun. That was in the 70s.