Come Monday, area schools will begin a brand new year. It always seems too early to me. School should begin after Labor Day. Right? That’s just one of the things that have changed since my school days. There are many other differences-my school days belonged to a different time which would seem foreign to children today.
We had “home rooms” at the start of each day. We began with a flag salute. Patriotism was good and we were proud to be Americans. We also had a short prayer, hard as that is to believe.
Girls wore dresses to school; boys wore jeans. No matter the outside temperature, girls did not wear jeans, or if we did, we wore a dress over them. It was a sort of dress code, or maybe it was just an accepted thing.
There was no such thing as school shootings. That was unheard of, even though in high school, boys may have driven their pick-ups to school with rifles prominently displayed through the rear window.
We were respectful of teachers and we carried that load of books in our arms; no back packs. And certainly, no internet learning. The internet? What in the world was that? We got grade cards at the end of each nine weeks’ period and the grades were hand-written in ink. We brought them home, a parent signed them; we took them back to school. We kept the same card all year.
No computers. We had paper and pencils and a blackboard in each classroom. School hours were nine to four, with a morning and an afternoon recess, usually fifteen minutes long. At noon, our break time was an hour.
Times have changed; rules have changed. That’s the way it was and that’s the way it is.
I can relate to all of what you shared! Also, being in a Catholic school we had uniforms. The skirts were way below the knees, but many of us girls would roll them up a bit at the waist. lol
I didn’t go to a church school, buy I remember rolling up skirts at the waist. I had forgotten until you mentioned it. Thanks for writing.