What are your elementary school memories?

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
#1

Just curious to see what you can remember. Be specific, too…

Here’s mine:
Kindergarten:[ul][li]There was a computer game were the object was to find a single key before this one thing ran into a wall. If you found the key (on the keyboard), it would jump over the wall. We would cheat by getting five or six of us to stand by and look for the key. In harder levels, you had to find two keys.[/li][li]I was the only one who knew what rhyming words were.[/li][li]My teacher always told my mom that I was good at Jigsaw Puzzles, which I probably was.[/li][li]We once broke into teams and had a competition. A wrestling competition. No wait. Not wrestling, we had to identify animal sounds. My team came in last. Who would of known a cow mooed?[/ul][/li]1st Grade:[ul][li]We sang a Halloween song that went, “H-A-double L-O-W-double E-N.” We would sing while the teacher played the piano. We sucked.[/li][li]There were wooden blocks we could play with: yellow hexagons, red trapezoids, blue parallelograms, and green triangles. We would play Sonic the Hedgehog with them. The blue parallelograms would be Sonic and we used the other pieces to make the levels.[/li][li]There were three groups of people: Those who liked The Power Rangers, those who didn’t like The Power Rangers, and those who made fun of the kids who liked The Power Rangers. I was part of the second group.[/ul][/li]2nd Grade:[ul][li]I was part of a split-class (2nd and 3rd graders in the same class).[/li][li]We were to write a story about one of say, eight picture. I can remember only two: A dragon, and parachuteing penguins. I chose the dragon. The story sucked.[/ul][/li]3rd Grade:[ul][li]I had the same teacher I had in 2nd grade, but it wasn’t a split class.[/li][li]The school got the great idea to put our lunches in carts instead of our desks. Made things a lot easier, actually.[/li][li]Me and this girl would also sit together in a the same chair (real soft/big chair - not the desk chairs), now… six years later, she sits behind me in English and we never talk! HA![/li][li]My teacher got married during that year, but not before having heart surgury. Which caused her to be out for a few weeks, and we had a substitute (the same one) for the time being.[/ul][/li]4th Grade:[ul][li]My teacher had things called “[instert teacher’s name here] dollars,” which we could use to rent books or buy home-made posters in the back of the room. I was the first one to get a 20 dollar bill.[/li][li]We always played Oregon Trail and my friends and I had the top score. (We did it as a team)[/li][li]We got a new track that year and we’d always have contests to see who ran the furthest. I was pretty far up there at the end of the year.[/li][li]I finally learned the exact second the bell rang to get out of school, so we’d all do a count down…[/li][li]Devil Sticks (I think that’s what they’re called) were big then. Devil Sticks are a set of three sticks, you hold two and use them to flip the third around. I was the man with those.[/ul][/li]5th Grade[ul][li]My teacher was the substitute teacher I had in 3rd grade while my teacher had her heart surgery.[/li][li]We made totem poles out of paper mache, I think. Ours was called something like “Elephmocobin.” Combination of the words elephant, moose, cow, and robin.[/li][li]We made phamphlets of imaginary vacation spots. Mine was on an island and had a cool hotel, amusement park, and other stuff. There were “Bumper Planes” at the park.[/ul][/li]6th Grade[ul][li]I won the checkers tournament, and came in second place in the chess tourament. I even beat my teacher 3 out of 5 games in checkers. I ended up getting five chocolate rabbits from him for winning.[/li][li]I got more homework then I do now (in 9th grade). They were “preparing us for middle school.” Ha! I maybe got two homework assignments in all of 7th grade.[/li][li]I was really sick one day and slept a whole recess away. Don’t ask me why I didn’t stay home instead.[/li][li]There was always a race for the swings, and we’d always get in trouble for jumping off of them.[/ul][/li]Those are my memories. At least the ones I can think of off the top of my head. What can you remember?

#2

Good God, man! You’re FIFTEEN! It’s too early to start getting nostalgia for something that happened last month!

#3

Here I am, well into my forties, and I can remember the names of all my grade-school teachers, kindergarten through sixth:

• Priscilla Dunkirk (k)
• Cordelia Weller (1st)
• Judith Goldman (2nd)
• Dorothy Wolfe (3rd)
• Sally Ross (4th)
• Sally Fricke (5th)
• Dave Katz (6th)

I feel like I went to grade school in the 19th century. It was an actual red-brick schoolhouse, built in 1918, and when I arrived in 1962 it still had the original desks, the kind you see in antiques stores today. We learned to count with a box of painted wooden blocks.

#4

I didn’t go to pre-school way back when I was a niblet. Sorry where the following isn’t specific – gotta protect th’ guilty! :wink:

I have more memories of primary school than there is room to post, but — I remember visits to the “murder house” as the dental nurse clinics are known here. I was lazy with my speech, kept pronouncing “th”s as “f”s, so I was sent to the speech therapist. And passed with flying colours when I showed that, yes, I could talk properly if I had the inclination. My teachers at one point thought I was deaf ‘cause I failed to answer to my name sometimes – no, I just zoned out while concentrating on tasks.

We had “shops” with dried pasta and stamps and stuff, to help teach us about reckoning and maths. Once, when I was 10, the class dressed up in Roman togas (actually Mother’s old sheets, one or two hand-died the week before for the gig), and had a “Roman Day”. That got into the local paper and I was quoted from a letter I wrote – first publication ever.

Age 11, and last year before heading to Intermediate, I played poker with the guys round the back of the classrooms. Can’t quite recall what we bet with, but a couple of ladies passing by on the street tutted and fretted and complained to the headmaster about kids “gambling” on the school grounds. They never did catch us.

I had a boxing match once with one boy who annoyed me. I loved my friends, and protected them whenever they got hurt. Didn’t get taken up in sports teams, and preferred to play chess – tho’, I was asked to go on the netball team once, in my last year (purely because at 5 foot tall, I was the tallest kid around who wasn’t on the team, and they were really desperate.)

Sold comics once for a bit of pocket money during the morning breaks. My teacher came up, about to bust me – and I managed to sweet talk my way out of it, somehow. Still sold the comics (wish I hadn’t, now, ‘cause some of ‘em were good –sigh)

#5

My most vivid elementary school memory is playing the game Oregon Trail on the old macs Apple gave to schools in the 1980’s.

The purpose of the game was to sell your belongings, get cash, and buy a wagon and supplies that would last you your entire journey to Oregon (like wagon axles, livestock, rifles, bullets, food, etc). I, being a strange child, named the individuals in my group after my family members.

Everything was going well until I started running out of food in the mid-west, then my axles broke, then some Indians raided my wagon, then I ran out of food. I couldn’t shoot any deer to feed my family and they started to die off one by one from starvation and disease.

I kept it in until Grandma died, then I lost it. Right in the middle of class.

I would have nightmares about the stupid game for years, and I have an unnatural hatred for macs that probably stems from this situation. Certainly there is a better way to teach children pioneer history without making them witness their famished family members die of dysentery.

#6

Nope, unless you want the Disney version of history.

#7

The year was 1975…

First-grader Bryan (that’s me!) starts to learn basic weights and measures. The teacher writes the abbreviation of “pound” on the board, a nicy tidy “lb”.

Bryan’s young brain sees a connection that has escaped his fellow students, and even the teacher. “That’s liberation!” he declares, earning confused looks from every corner.

Only in much later years did the dichotomy of lib/lb come to mind.

#8

Another old guy, here’s some random stuff, just what comes to the top of my head now. I moved around a lot as a kid, and don’t have much of a sense of time, so these are sorted as much by location as grade.

Pre-school and Kiddygarden (Concord, CA): I remember the reading books, the old Dick and Jane series. See Spot run. Run Spot run. Ad nauseum. But mostly I remember that they gave us some sort of fruit juice and oatmeal cookies. The juice was served in little colorful metal cups. I can just about taste the cookies and feel the cool metal cup on my mouth.

First and Second Grade (Seattle, WA): First grade teacher was Ms. Olive. Second grade teacher was Sister Sylvester. That name cracked us up, but I suppose she was nice enough. I got my first kiss in first grade, incidentally when the girl who sat in front of me, either Betty or Peggy Zugish(sp?), was whipping her pigtails in my face. Then she turned around and kissed me on the nose. I had a crush on a girl name Margaret, whose last name I forget. She had a crush on someone else, I think. During this time Nixon ran against Humphrey and we had a mock campaign and election. I remember learning that Bobby Kennedy was killed from a girl who lived across the street as we were playing on some monkey bars (but I think this was in the summer and not during school). My best friend was John Withkowski, I think his Dad, a policeman, shot a guy during a bank robbery.

Grades 3 and 4 (Potomac, MD): I got glasses. Started to play little league football. Went to St. Elizabeth’s which I think is in Rockville (don’t go back there). My best friend’s names were Joel and Drew. Joel’s family was Mormon so they couldn’t play on Sundays. Drew was from Pittsburgh originally and gave us grief as the Pirates beat the Orioles in the World Series. We memorized the words to American Pie. I got my first ever non-straight As report card, a B in one subject (I forget which) and got punished for it.

Grades 4 - 7 (Decatur, GA): Moved to Atlanta toward the end of fourth grade. This was the first time I went to public school. I’d also never met anyone with a Southern accent, nor for that matter, many non-Catholic kids. Got into several fights in the first few weeks, both in and out of school, which seemed to be some sort of right of passage. This stopped when I beat up the bully of our grade, then everyone feared me. I wasn’t particulary tough, just grew up with brothers was all. I ended up friends with most of the kids that I fought, except the last one. On the first day in my new school we had a spelling test. The teacher said I didn’t have to take it if I didn’t want to since I hadn’t been exposed to the material. I was the only kid in the class to get a 100 on the test. Parochial school education, I guess. But we were behind the material in math (we covered things more thoroughly) so I got into the regular, versus advanced, math class. I did almost no homework from this point until my sophomore year in college. Had my first “girlfriends”, we would kiss, even have kissing parties that were little necking sessions. Had my first beer, which I didn’t like, it may have been a Rolling Rock. Started to swim competitively and did fairly well at that. Lot’s of memories of that period, I guess too much to go into here.

#9

2nd grade: we learned to revise our writing. After 3 drafts they were bound up on hardcovers to make books, and we added illustrations. My first opus (already indicating, perhaps, and interest in minutae) was entitled “All About Cats.” We learned to program in BASIC as a pilot study to see how young kids could start with computers. We had black and white Vic-20s with tape drives and played “Math Blaster” on the side. I remember when the color monitor Commodore 64s were bought. AWESOME!

3rd grade – there were three third grade teachers and we had “tracked” English and Math which meant we switched classrooms for those subjects. One of the teachers was mean. We called her Mrs. Sidewinder. My english teacher was shortlisted to be on the Challenger. She had done linguistics studies with dolphins. We thought she was the coolest. At first we were dissapointed that she didn’t get chosen to go into space, but then (later in the year) we were glad she didn’t get blown up.

4th grade - we learned to balance a checkbook. Another class did a play of “The Phantom Tollbooth” and I was really jealous that I wasn’t in that class. I learned to program in LOGO and my final project drew a picture of a horse in a field while “Home on the Range” played in the background. I took riding lessons for the first time after class.

5th grade - we had our own “mini-school” annex which had air conditioning. I read the Lord of the Rings. I grew boobs, boys harassed me constantly. We had projects on foreign countries and we all had to cook something from our project country. Mine was the Dominican Republic. I made a sort of coconut pie. Yum.

#10

Egad, where do I begin? Well, I’ll start with the beginning.

Very first day of first grade (no kindergarten where I lived). The teacher asks if anyone can write their name. I excitedly raise my hand. She calls me up to the board to write my name. Then my brain starts to work. I had seen my mother write my name (in cursive), had an excellent picture of it in my mind. Clueless on how to write it. Scrawled something and sat back down. Nothing like an important lesson learned early. Always be 100% sure ahead of time before jumping in.

Now day two, … (See the thread I started on “How far back can you remember?” on my memory abilities.)

Generally, I remember a lot of instances where the teacher was wrong (and I couldn’t convince them).

#11

Kindergarten - This year, the best and most innocent of my life, was spent in Austin, Texas, at Harris Elementary School - a pretty large school, as I remember it, and a pretty nice one. We had naps and I remember laughing at the word ‘bladder’ and feeling so scared that I’d be caught saying what I thought was such a potty word. I remember my best friend then, named April, whom I square-danced with. I remember a Sarah there, too, talking about God - I had no idea who ‘God’ was then, and was so spooked when I found out what she was on about.

First Grade - Also spent in Austin, at the same school. I remember trying to fly by jumping off a playground-thingy with my umbrella. Didn’t work well - I chickened out at the last second. I also remember sitting with my friends inside an enormous tire on the playground, talking. I discovered a pink crayon in there - I had no idea such a thing existed! I also remember buttercups, a flower that doesn’t exist in my part of Florida. I miss the flowers.

Second Grade - Moved to Florida, went to school at Lake Panasoffkee Elementary. I remember making a few friends and missing my old ones. Other than that… I can’t tell you.

Third Grade - Remember having a major crush on someone who’d not give me the time of day then. Sent my first and last love note. Maybe I managed to run a quarter-mile at recess and being so pooped out at the end that I collapsed, but am unsure about the exact year.

Fourth Grade - Remember being sent to detention for cussing out a teacher because I was frustrated at a math problem I kept getting wrong. I am so embarrassed in retrospect, but was proud then, for some reason.

Fifth Grade - Remember reading a story and having to be interviewed as a character from that story. Other than that, nothing much else, other than walking at the graduation into middle school and playing checkers at PE.

#12

Third Grade My buddy and I learning the times tables to 16X. You had to learn them to 9x. We were geeks. What can I say.

Fourth Grade Working in the school store and getting Barber coins(1892-1916) in payment for pencils. I took them home in exchange for my lunch money. Hmmm! Maybe this started my career?

Sixth Grade Making an unassisted triple-play in a softball game at recess. Also, answering math questions because no one else could, and being ostracised for it. It started me on a life of meaning well but being perceived as a condescending jerk.

#13

(Sorry, took some creative liberties with punctuation and such in quoting your post)

Wow. Apparently I’m not the only one emotionally scarred by that game. I had no problem with my troupe of pioneers kicking the bucket; in fact, I used to put them on extremely meagre rations, set them out on their journey in June, and see how long they’d hold out. But once, in Grade Two, I was merrily trucking my guys across the continent when I was asked if I’d like to view a gravestone on the side of the road. Sure, I said. Imagine the speed at which my seven-year-old heart leapt into my throat when, with dirge-like music playing in the background, I read:
Here Lies Treviathan
R.I.P.

Apparently, I’d died once before and the computer remembered it. I think I ran to the teacher and started crying. Stupid game. :mad:

#14

Kindergarten- Was fascinated with the entire concept of Show and Tell. Once brought my Venus fly trap to school and another Kindergarten teacher recommended that I feed it cooked ground beef. I went home, did thus, and lo and behold, it wilted into nothing. It would be just a few years later when that teacher’s husband got drunk, got behind the wheel, ran a stoplight and into another car, and killed the occupant of that vehicle: the Principal’s teenage daughter. The culprit walked away in a drunken daze, unharmed.

First Grade- Also had great times playing with those afformentioned blocks. Those kicked some ass. One time I was drawing a smiley face on my desk, the teacher saw, and she scolded me. I couldn’t handle authoritive punishments too well at that nubile age. There was also a bully in that grade, quite a crazy kid, all things considered.

Second Grade- Had my first crush. Now eight years later I can barely recall her, although she attends my school. Well, with a 3,000+ student population, you can’t blame me.

Third Grade- Had two obsessions: Ghosts and Tasmania. My friends and I were convinced that the “panel room” (a janitorial closet in the boy’s bathroom) was haunted by the tormented soul of a teacher who was secretly starved to death in there. We were also fascinated with Ouija boards and even made our own ones out of lined paper. My friend Andrew and I also designed a time machine that went this way: We take a car, like a minivan. We clear out all the back seats, and instead hook up about a dozen laptop computers with “internet power.” We figured that if we could connect as many connections to the net at once while simultaneously traveling as fast as possible we would somehow jump through time. We even had some guy tell us the web address to NASA…something like “84443ba345847”. This being seven years ago, we weren’t too familiar with computers.

Fourth Grade- Strong dislike. I hated my teacher and lost my best friend in a fight. That was the only serious fight I’ve been in- and I beat him up pretty badly.

Fifth Grade- Wasn’t in any classes with friends, so I was somewhat isolated. Had a crush on my science teacher, too. Furthermore, I had my first good female friend, but she ended up attending a different junior high and high school.

And thus my elementary legacy.

#15

I have only a vague recollection of elementary school (well, actually all school in general :wink: ) but I do have a few select memories:

Kiddygarten:
[ul][li]Not much happened during this time. I remember lots of singing and coloring, though.[/li][li]I was genuinely surprised when during the last week of school, I learned that school years actually end and there are summer vacations.[/ul][/li]1st grade:
[ul][li]I found out that I suck at all sports. I loathed every second of P.E.[/li][li]I beat up the class bully (no, really!) when he tried to steal my bike.[/li][li]Lots and lots of boring educational films. The old kind, with the film reels and projector.[/ul][/li]2nd grade:
[ul][li]The school finally bought some new A/V equipment with huge CDs called Laserdiscs. Worse than the aforementioned educational films. No moving pictures, just a big slide show.[/ul][/li]3rd grade:
[ul][li]Finally got a teacher I really liked. She quit after three weeks and was replaced by some short lady with a very quiet voice. Very boring.[/li][li]I got the second best role in the school play, as Mozart’s father. I even had to sing a couple of lines.[/ul][/li]4th grade:
[ul][li]Best Year Ever! I got a teacher that didn’t believe in homework and loved to go on field trips! She also liked to show movies in class.[/li][li]I was introduced to Oregon Trail. Did every school have this game?!? Hardly ever got to play it since we only had one computer.[/li][li]I played soccer at recess every day and even managed to acquire a few skills.[/ul][/li]5th grade:
[ul][li]Last year of elementary school.[/li]I earned some kind of President’s Education Award for having good grades. I still have the pin somewhere.[/ul]

#16

Being only 19, I can remember a lot of incidents from elementary school fairly well. Probably the earliest one comes from first grade. Our teacher had a wall chart where she made checkmarks for behavior infractions from each student. Go an entire day without a checkmark and you earned a ticket. After ten days, I had ten tickets and was extremely proud of my accomplishment. At some point, the teacher asked how many tickets we all had. I said “ten”, assuming that that would make me number one. Then the kid who sat next to me said “eleven”. I angrily declared that no one could possibly have eleven because she had only been giving out tickets for ten days. There was a fight. Neither of us got a ticket that day.

I’ll post some more when I have the time.

#17

My mother taught my brother and me at home when I was in Kindergarten through second grade, because we were living overseas and there was no English school anywhere nearby.

Kindergarten: I had to draw ponies and I was bored. My mother let me start first grade early.

1st through 2nd grades: I had to do math sheets that involved triangles of blocks. I hated them. I was constantly trying to get my mother to pay attention to me instead of my brother.

3rd grade: We moved to the US and I started public school. This was the first time I’d been among that many children who all spoke English, and I was overwhelmed. My teacher’s name was Mrs. Sedillo, and I learned to spell “Bernalillo” (our county) because it had the same Spanish “ll” as her name did. I remember my mother coming to my class to tell the kids about Indonesia, and I was crushed when she had Liz Castillo put on my native costume instead of having me do it. I made one friend (not Liz, predictably).

4th grade: I loved my teacher, but she got sick in the middle of the first semester and we had a substitute for the rest of the year. He apparently hated and feared children, and he used to spank the boys - only the boys - in front of the rest of the class. In retrospect, someone probably should have reported him. I made one more friend.

5th grade: My teacher’s name was Mrs. Posthelwaite. She had a blonde beehive hairdo and never discovered that I hadn’t actually learned my multiplication tables the previous year. I was sent to the counselor once a week and got to do art projects there. The counselor’s room had a big mirror at one end. It wasn’t till I was an adult that I found out my mother had given the school permission to enroll me in an education study. Neither of my two friends was in my class, but one of them was also in the study.

6th grade: I was in a double classroom where two teachers taught as a team. I hated one and loved the other, who was the first teacher (aside from my mother) who made me feel I was someone special. I owe the one I hated a debt of gratitude, though, since she did discover I didn’t know the times tables and she made me learn them. A boy whose name I still remember but who I will protect from further humiliation peed on his chair when this teacher refused to give him permission to go to the bathroom. We hatched chicks from eggs, and my mother refused to let me take one home.

I’ve spent a great deal of time trying to ensure that my children will have better elementary school memories. Any bets?

#18

Ok, where to start…

Kindergarten I am in love. Her name is Laurie, and I stand in line with her. She’s a small, darkish girl, possibly has some Eastern ancestry. She’s very shy, and doesn’t talk much. I didn’t see her much after Kindergarten, and she didn’t seem to remember me. She moved away in first grade, anyway. I would not fall in love again for five years…

1st Grade I had a mind slip and accidentally misspelled “on” “n-o.” The assistant teacher lady wouldn’t let me take it back, even though I immediately realized my mistake. Bitch.

2nd Grade I am the best speller in the class, and possibly the school, but that will never be known. I didn’t get to compete. We had a computer in our classroom! It was incredible… but still nothing special, the computer we had at home was better. I was one of only a few kids in the class that even had a computer. This was the year when it appeared that I had problems with completing homework.

3rd Grade I’m getting to be kind of an ass… I’m smart, and what’s worse, I want everyone to know it. This leads to some awkward moments when I have the balls to correct my teacher. Still, on one occasion I was right: when two teachers, mine and another were switching off to teach about rocks and stars. I was with the other teacher to learn about stars, and HOLDING THE BOOK RIGHT THERE she told us that red stars were hot, and blue ones were cooler. I told her, most respectfully, that she had it backwards. She didn’t take that well, and I was hot water. I knew this stuff though, so I continued to fill in the little sheets we got with the CORRECT information. This pissed her off… but when she realized, in front of the entire class, that she had been wrong after all, she refused to give me any credit for having been doing the right thing after all, because I had “not followed directions.” What a bitch she was.

4th Grade First year in the 4-8 middle school. I missed the first day because… well, I forget why. An unremarkable year. Homework continues to be an issue for me, and causes problems. We have to write in journals every morning, which absolutely sucks. There are a couple girls sitting at my table that laugh at absolutely everything, including my stupid jokes. EGO BOOST! We did reports on famous people - I chose Dwight D. Eisenhower. I got to wear a borrowed officers cap and fatigue jacket! Woohoo! On a sadder note, I was quite unpopular, which wasn’t fun. This continued a trend from previous years…

5th Grade Two words: Mrs. Cadwell! Sometimes I loved this teacher, sometimes I hated her. She was clever, intelligent, and neat. She could also be mean very easily, and it was hard to get credit… she had a points system. You got points for work done, etc. I never had many points… as a matter of fact, I was often in the negatives. She was also Republican, and had an annoying habit of talking about how evil Bill Clinton was. It wasn’t fair, since she could argue to a room of 5th graders and not fear competition. This was 1996-1997, by the way - the election year. It was hell on wheels, I tell you. Still not well-liked. Things were pretty bad this year.

6th Grade Horrible! I had Mrs. Sampson in homeroom, the most evil teacher ever to exist! She was just, well, strict and kind of cruel. And she taught math. From here on, I have hated math. She made it incredibly dull. Also, she required us to take notes for everything, which positively infuriated me. They did me no good, and distracted me from the subject matter. I was always chapters ahead in the history and class reading books. I never read any of those notes, and never got lower than a B on any test other than math. It was pathetic. The stress of constantly being picked on and ridiculed/hated was beginning to be too much. I flew off the handle often with my family, and even had a couple of outbursts in class. Not good. Terrible year, and it was great to get out of that school and into the charter school I attend now.

On another note, that year I got my first real crush in five years. Her name was Emily, and new to the school that year. She didn’t know she was supposed to hate me… we got along, and she was decent to me, though we were never close friends.

#19

Geez, I thought I wouldn’t have many specific memories, but in reading everybody else’s, I’ve come up with a few…

Pre-school through 1st grade: St. Louis.
I went to a private school. It might have been Presbyterian, but I don’t really remember. My best friend’s name was Peter Medlar. Our gym teacher was named Mrs. Jacobson, but we called her (behind her back, of course) Mrs. Ketchupson, and we thought this the height of wit. We had to wear jackets at recess and during gym (outside, that is) unless it was at least 60 degrees. Most of our schoolwork was done with the same teacher, but we had different teachers for gym and art. I didn’t like my kindergarten teacher (whose name I can’t recall), but I adored my 1st grade teacher, Mrs. Knoepfel. We played a lot of Red Rover, which I was pathetically bad at, since I was extremely small, and couldn’t break through the line. My first crush; her name was Betsy.

2nd grade through 6th grade: Tulsa, Oklahoma.
I won the school spelling bee in 3rd grade; my opponent in the final rounds was the younger sister of my babysitter. She was in 6th grade, and actually started crying when she lost. Years later, I still feel bad for her, although at the time I didn’t, because several people carried me out of the auditorium on their shoulders. I also won again in 5th grade. I think. Oddly enough, I can’t quite remember whether it was 5th or 6th grade.

We had different teachers for every subject right from the get-go. Our gym teacher was Mr. Ferguson, and people called him (to his face, even) Frog or Froggie. He didn’t seem to mind. We learned the Hustle (the disco dance, not the Latin Hustle) in gym class. Damn that stupid climbing rope. We played a strange version of volleyball called Newcombe, where you catch the ball and throw it back over the net rather than just hitting it back over. I was pretty good at soccer, but lousy at kickball. Ooh, and four-square! I was good at that.

One year we made origami in art class, and since there were three of us who already knew how, the art teacher assigned us to teach people new forms. I was the best (modest, too), so I was sort of “in charge”.

Math class was the best. We had a “learn at your own pace” system, with tests at the beginning and end of each level. Once you passed the test, you went on to the next level. If you didn’t pass, you got homework specific to the kinds of questions you got wrong on the tests. A really neat system. I think I was up to level 18 (a school record) by the time I left.

Special projects class–what would today be called “gifted and talented”. We’d be pulled out of our regular classes for 4- or 6-week mini-classes on various subjects (logic, literature, German, ballet, etc.). I’m not sure how they chose the kids (particularly for the artistic/musical ones), but I was chosen for every single one except the ballet and opera ones, which I probably wouldn’t have liked anyway. Mrs. Rasmussen is still among the top five teachers I’ve ever had. What a neat lady, and she’s still teaching there!

I had a crush on the same girl–her name was Suzanne Doss–from 3rd through 5th grade (and again in 7th grade). She was never interested, though. At least she was about my height; in 6th grade, I had a crush on Tina Bachenberg, who was the second-tallest student in school (about a head taller than me). That didn’t go anywhere either, unsurprisingly.

My best friend (at least in 6th grade, which is the first year I really had a “best friend”) was named Chris Tennefos. He introduced me to all kinds of stuff–BB guns, motorcycles, army men battles. I had a minor crush for a short while on his little sister Malisa (she was two years younger). Never even voiced, though, even to Chris.

Some good memories (which are mostly the ones I’ve touched on here), some bad (most of which revolve around either being the shortest kid in class or having few friends because I was branded a “brain”). All in all, though, it wasn’t too bad a way to grow up.

Thanks, Yo La Tengo, for this thread. Even if you are way too young to be starting threads like this. :p;)

#20

Oh come on, it was years ago. I can hardly remember what I had for dinner… Wait a minu – Oh yeah, nevermind. Cheese Omelet.

So yeah, be proud of me. :stuck_out_tongue: