I went to school when:
The day started with the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by the Lord's Prayer.
World War 2 wasn't a part of history. It was current events.
Every freshman girl took Home Ec. and every freshman boy took Manual Training.
We didn't have Phys. Ed. We had recess and the noon hour.
We didn't have a lunch room. The ones who could went home for lunch. The rest brought their lunch and ate wherever they wanted.
We didn't have school buses. We had 2 feet and walked, sometimes many miles.
The coach and the music teacher taught other classes, also.
After school activities consisted of going home, doing chores and maybe a quick ball game before the evening paper arrived in town to be delivered to our customers.
Homework was done in study hall because that was why we had study hall.
Boys competed in football, basketball and track. Girls cheered.
Girls wore skirts. Boys wore bib overalls.
Now, I am not saying that this was better than what we have today. There are a lot of advantages to today's schools. The children can get a far more rounded education than what was available in ancient times. But, you have to admit, that a lot has been lost, too.
I went to school when...
Jeans could only be worn on Fridays and I don't think that was every Friday.
Skirts were so short you wondered what you were showing when you bent over.
We had open lunch hour where you could go to the lunch room, home, the drugstore, or the pool hall. However, girls did not go in the pool hall. Only the boys.
Girls took Home Ec (sewing and cooking) and boys took Ag. To have a talk about sex, girls went to one room and boys went to another.
I'm sure that Ms. T can come up with more.
I wondered if that was Uncle Bill's picture.
I went to school when
The girls principal walked around with a ruler in her hand making us kneel down so she could measure the gap between floor and skirt more than 2" and home you went. (or you unrolled the waistband and rolled it back up when she was gone)
If you you got sent to the principals office they had a board that they used and then when we went home our parents used another one in the same place. (time out had not been invented yet lol)
Kids stood whenever an adult entered the room and remained standing until told they could sit.
All teachers where named Sir or Ma'am
School was never cancelled because of "inclement weather" In town kids walked to school as usual out of town kids got to stay home and make up the work they missed over the weekend.
We did not spend the week before a test reviewing what we had done, it was assumed that we had retained what they taught us and if we didn't then we failed the class and got to do it over again.
I went to school when.......................
* You had to set in Pep Club and actually help the cheerleaders cheer and chant during the whole game. Mrs Barnaby and Mrs. Vinette only let you get up after half time was kind of over.. and then we could only go in "shifts".
( had to have a pep club yelling all the time for the team, ya know..)
* When study hall was an hour of being in the library. You could either study, laugh at Rick Lanning, or watch Mr. Davis pick his nose. ( ;D)
*Jeans could never be worn even when it was bitter cold. (( Ta Ta was younger than me..and the rules changed a bit))
* Band was always in the mornings before school and you took pride in playing and marching at halftime for your school. Pep rally's were every Friday and someone always did a skit where they made fun of one of the teachers. And the teachers laughed..
* Boys could carry pocket knives in their pockets and their rifles in their gun racks of their trucks parked on the school ground.
* The only thing we did was smoke cigarettes and drink beer and on Prom night "purple passion".
Didn't have a clue what marrijuanna or drugs other than aspirin was...
And if you had a headache, you could go in the office and get aspirin out of the desk if you neded it.
* We had P E gym class( girls and boys seperate hours of course) and played dodge ball, kick ball, whiffle ball and sometimes we girls got to play volley ball, but then we didn't have a team.. only played it in PE hour.
* And don't forget the old radiators that make all that noise when they were heating up.
Had to sit right by them to be really warm...
And no a/c .. ( the third floor was horrible hot) if you got to sit by the window you were lucky in the summer..
(((I could add tons more.. but I will give the floor to someone else.))) :)
When the school house was one room when all eight grades in the room.
When the teacher arrived at the school in the winter her first job was to get the coal stove fired up and the room warm for the kids.
Our study hall was the time when the teacher had another classes down front and working with them.
And yes, we walked to school or rode bikes with pedal power.
I also remembered trading sandwichs with other kids so I could have store brought bread instead of home baked bread and both of us thought we got the best end of the deal.
I used to like that store bought bread, too, but now I kind of like the bread I bake. Note, I said bake, not make. I buy the frozen loaves of unbaked bread. They aren't as good as Mother's but are better than store bought.
When we moved to the country, I started school in a two room school house. If you needed to use the restroom you went to the OUTHOUSE. I cannot remember how it was heated but in the spring all the windows and doors were open. We had more the one wild vermit show up at the door.
Both teachers went out side at recess unless someone was sick. The meals were cooked at the High School. Everything was fixed by hand. I can still remember the smell of fresh bread when you walked in the door. The boys were always served more because they had to go home and help their dads in the field.
This is the same place that is now just 15 miles out of Topeka, KS. I went by the other day and they had torn the two room school house down. I did feel like a part of history went with it.
Army Mom
Quote from: Teresa on April 04, 2007, 10:37:47 PM
*Jeans could never be worn even when it was bitter cold. (( Ta Ta was younger than me..and the rules changed a bit))
Yes, yes, yes. She admits, publically admits, that I, Ta Ta, am younger than Ms. T. hahahahahahahahaha
When pregnant teenage girls were either sent out of town to a relatives home or to an un-wed mother's home to have the baby. Being unwed and pregnant, was a definite "no-no" in society.
Girls were taught in Home Economics that it was not acceptable to telephone any guy/boyfriend. We were told that was considered as "chasing them."
While I was in school, older men were referred to as "Mr." and women as "Ma'am" or Miss/Mrs. _______ (surname).
Women's Lib was unheard of............and sexual harrassment....what's that? We'd never heard of that either.
We were taught manners/etiquette, and consideration for others.
There were no sex education classes.
Teachers were allowed to swat you with a paddle for misbehaving.
On TV, some of the popular programs of that era were Bonanza, American Bandstand, Leave It To Beaver, Andy Griffith Show,and Father Knows Best, just to name a few.
The girls wore can-cans, hoop skirts, poodle skirts, penny loafers, and saddle oxfords, and hula-hoops were the rage, along with Elvis Presley.
Our records were either in the album 33 rpm size, and the single records were 45 rpm. (discs) Hamburgers were the popular fast food among the young people.
Now.....it someone else's turn.
I went to grade school at the Howard Grade School and it always amazed me as a child that we got to rope off the brick streets and play in the street. Girls still wore dresses everyday and those shiny-slick soled shoes that slid easily on bricks, so we were always falling down and skinning whatever body part hit first.
And since basketball games for the high school were played in the gym in the grade school, the hallway would be blocked off and tables set up for the concession stand. The next day, the old fountain pop machine would still be sitting there in the hallway. One day, about noon, as I was coming out of my classroom to walk home for lunch, I recognized the distinctive cries of my younger sister, who was at the time, in Kindergarten. She and my brother had been waiting for me to get out so we could walk home for lunch together. Welll, since we didn't get pop very often, she tried to get some by pushing the lever down, but somehow her finger got stuck in the mechanism and pop was flooding in every direction. And she was howling. All my younger brother could say was, "Not me, not me, I don't want pop....sissy did it!"
Anyway, I just remember going to grade school and walking home for lunch and when we would walk back, the high school was just being released and they headed uptown to the various places mentioned earlier by Teresa. I remember being deathly afraid of those "big guys" and would cross the street so they wouldn't try to run me off the sidewalk.
The stage had those colored lights that tucked down into the floor and we did musicals or some type of fancy programs. But the basketball games I got to go to as a child were the most impressive---I remember getting to sit up in the balcony the surrounded the gym on 3 sides and that gym was rockin!
Such memories. Maybe some more later.
You know..speaking of memories.. and the gym...
After Dad Cookson bought the old school... I used to go in there and just stand, and look around. It was so quieet and empty.. or so it seemed.
But I swear I could hear all of us and see all of us doing all of those things that we used to do in that gymnasium. I saw us playing dodge ball and the boys making baskets and the band and the pep club and the Programs on the stage etc.............................
It was if time took a step back and just stood still.
It is so sad now that the windows are all broken and the floors are all buckeld up and the roof is caving in.. the pigeon poop in there is about 3 feet thick and the ammonia is so strong that you can barely stand outside the door. For health reasons I wouldn't dare go inside.
Rob Cookson owns it now and even if I hate seeing our old buildings go... this one should be totally torn down.
Teresa,
I agree about tearing down the building. It is quite an eyesore now and I think, very hazardous to one's health. For those who like to vandalize--it's just more temptation. Are there any plans to demolish it?
A few months ago, when we were so warned/worried about the Bird Flu epidemic, I could just see the whole town of Howard wiped out----since all those pigeons have homesteaded there.....I already have had the flash feeling of Alfred Hitchcock's "BIRDS" when I have driven or walked past there.
But I still have those good memories.
I went to school a little later than some:
We had a two or three rebel guys that took Home Economics.
We had PE instructors showered and dressed with us and put on shirts and ties again.
We had to get to the cafeteria early for Mrs. Lanning's cinnamon rolls and lasagna. We also had a new thing our Jr. or Sr. year, a sandwich line, a salad line and a hot meal line.
We had study hall but didn't always study. I still remember my senior year having Mr. Graham telling us that he couldn't keep us from taking the class the next year but he sure could recommend it. We listended carefully and then went right back to talking. We had Study Hall in the cafeteria.
We could not wear shorts outside of PE class or sports practice. No flip flops because we had to wear socks with sandals and no tank tops.
In elementary school, we had yardsticks by the door and the girls had to stop and have their skirts measured.
We had open lunch until our Sr. year when we moved to the new school. Everyone was ticked when we had to go to closed lunches and it took a lot longer to get through the lines.
We prayed for drifts in the winter because that was the only way that school was going to be closed.
We members of the pep club would sing We Are the Champions as the guys walked off the court even after be trounced by the opponents.
The sick room was laying on a couch in the office or in the Home Ec room.
We had PE with the girls. When playing dodge ball we had to throw with our left hands.
I remember being at the old buildings with the windows open in the summer. The wind would change and their would be a distinct odor. My dad used to call it "the smell of money." Probably not so much now.
When I started teaching in the mid 80's, the guys wore tank tops, shorts and flip flops. The girls were clad about the same. One of the coaches ran around the field without his shirt and I didn't have to wear a tie to work everyday. The first year I taught, we had a pregnant homecoming queen and the king was the father of the baby. At that time, girls and guys were required to take a quarter of Vo-AG and a quarter of Home Ec. Things were a lot different in less than ten years.
Scotty
you dont have to to home Ec unless you didn't take jr-high band other wise your home Ec safe, from there on out.
GRADE SCHOOL--- REMEMBER THOSE LOVELY RIDING PANTS THAT MY MOM BOUGHT FOR ME. AS I REMEMBER,THEY DIDN'T LAST VERY LONG AS I WAS ALWAYS FALLING DOWN AND I TORE THE KNEES OUT OF THEM. I IREMEMBER THIRD GRADE AS A VERY SAD YEAR. PHYLISS WINN, ELAINE THOMPSON AND I ALL SHARED THREE BOY FRIENDS, AND GUESS THAT THEY ALL MOVED AWAY THAT YEAR [DAVID MORGAN, HAROLD PEMERTON, AND LARRY DEAN MALEY]. BUT MOST OF ALL I REMBER PEGGY SPUNAUCLE [CUSTODIAN]
HE LET JANIE HENRY AND I PLAY IN THE HIGH SCHOOL. WE ROLLAR SKATED ON THE FIRST FLOOR UNTIL AUG. HE THEN PAINTED THE FLOOR. IT WAS SUCH FUN TO GO UP TO THE THIRD FLOOR AND GO DOWN THE FIRE ESCAPE [SLIPPER SLIDE]. HE WAS SUCH A GREAT GUY.