Mrs. Muier; I remember her well compared to any of the other grade-shcool grades except 6th. Learning by then, back then and back there, was more in the rote method but she had a knack for making everyone feel like an individual. And really drilling into us that the study and learning habits we developed there were what we would carry with us through graduation and life. None of it really sunk in to us at the time but its odd how many of us remembered it as we aged; even now 55+ years later.
More than is probably healthy…
I was in Mrs. Brewer’s homeroom, but had Miss Barber for reading. I remember having a hard time spelling the word “because”. I remember where our classroom was in the school- farthest back on the right side of the right hallway.
“Another One Bites the Dust” was on the radio at the time, and I recall some of the chatter among the other students was that Freddie Mercury sang in the nude. I also remember hearing that the band KISS was a bunch of devil worshippers as well. Country still got some Top 40 play- I recall “I Love a Rainy Night” by Eddie Rabbitt being on the radio a lot as well.
I do remember that period in my life, but the detailed memories are mixed in with a lot of stuff that blurs together. I can readily recall my second-grade classroom, down to the desk where I sat and where my best friend sat in relation to it…but I remember very little of what went on in that room. I suspect it was because I was bored most of the time, and more interested in whatever book I had brought from home to read than anything in the class. (It may not help that my memories of that time are literally blurry, either, since it was before anyone realized I was extremely nearsighted.)
The actual school lessons I remember were generally in a special program I was in, where the teacher was free to throw math at us as fast as we could absorb it, along with programming on the primitive computers we had access to. However, I had that class in the same little metal outbuilding, with the same teacher and the same classmates, for four years. That makes placing most of the specific memories in a timeline kind of difficult.
On the broad question of things we remember: I think a lot of the difference comes down to how much context people reconstruct. People tend to remember through repetition or excitement, so they may remember clearly where they sat every day for months, or a day when something dramatic happened, but quiet activity that isn’t specifically repeated will fade into a fog, like dozens of layers of film footage overlaid on each other. If you try to remember into that fog, you may find yourself reconstructing things from the vivid spots you remember clearly. If you don’t make an effort to recall, the haze remains.
What’s especially strange to me is how non-linear it is. I have way clearer memories of preschool than second grade. From second grade, I remember my teacher’s name (Mrs. Holmes), more or less where the classroom was, playing the stupid recorder… and very little more. But from preschool I remember the shape and feel of the tricycles on the playground, the green-box butter crackers we ate (which, looking now, must have been Keebler Club brand), specific projects like building a bird feeder out of a cardboard milk carton, riding there in an old Volvo with the “back back seats”, and a ton of other specific details.
Third grade and on aren’t bad, and I remember some things about kindergarten… but first and second grade are an almost complete gap. I wonder if the way that the memories were stored changed at a certain point, like from emotional to autobiographical, and it took a couple of years for my brain to catch up.
I’ll do a sort of stream of consciousness thing.
That was the year I moved up from the K-1 class. I remember the teacher’s name and a whole lot of what the classroom looked like. It was my first exposure to a computer (an Apple IIc). I remember her having Thanksgiving dinner the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I remember the French teacher, who was also the K-1 teacher. I remember it was when we first got actual readers instead of just learning phonics. I remember the girl I had a crush on who I called my girlfriend, as well as her older sister who I was fascinated with. I remember being able to play in the big kids’ playground, though we also did that after school anyways when I was younger. I remember I did not have a valentine that year.
It’s hard to remember much else specifically, as I was in that classroom for 3 years, 2nd through 4th. It’s just the way this (Montessori) school worked. They didn’t have enough students for a class per grade, and the individual attention setup made it unnecessary. I only was able to go there because my mom worked there, at that point in the toddler room. (I do remember going down to see her sometimes.)
Second grade was the year I became JJ, so that is quite memorable for me as it’s a nickname I’ve had for over 30 years now. I got the name JJ because there were two other girls in the class with the same first name and last initial as me. Because of this I remember who was in the class with me, as us three sat at a table with two other girls with the same last initial. I still keep in touch with all those girls.
Also, one of our classmates’ moms died that year and that was a big big deal, so I remember that happening.
The teacher was a very old lady. Probably the first teacher I had who died while I was still in school (not the year I had her, just she died before I graduated).
I grew up in a tiny fishing and farming village in rural New Zealand in the 70s. My school had only 40 kids at most from age 5 to 10. A few satellite schools to us were even smaller, and a couple a lot bigger, but still small by most city standards.
The system of years at the time was labelled in a weird way that I sometimes have trouble connecting with how Americans do it, let alone any other country. I wish everyone measured their childhood in ages instead of grades because it does my head in sometimes.
For me, after two or three years of preschool (kindergarten, playcentre, creche, whatever) we started school properly on our 5th birthdays. The first year was known as J1 (for Junior) broken up into Primer 1 and Primer 2. The next year was J2, which was Primer 3 and Primer 4. This was all taught by the same teacher, in my case Mrs Winmill.
Then, at age 7 (or near enough, the start of each school year was in late January), we went into the “big” class, which was four years called Standard 1, 2, 3, and 4 up to age 10. This also was the same teacher throughout, Mr Herrick*, but he moved away near the end and I had one brief term with Mr Miller.
At age 11 it was two years of Intermediate, but in my case that was part of the regional High School, and the years were named Form 1 thru 7, up to age 18. Most kids left at age 15 to go work on the family farm or whatever, but some stayed on the last two years to go onto University.
What this meant was I had some friends who I had been steadily alongside for 15 years, give or take, and some for maybe 8 years, and a few for less. All of them will remember me, vaguely, and recognise me if they saw me again, even if we all are old and fat and grey now.
I guess second grade is age 7, so yes, I remember going into the big class. I was a bit of a prodigy at my school, for some reason, though in the wider scope of things I really should not have been, and they had high hopes for me, most of which I squandered and dashed pretty quickly by being a weedy weird kid who was bullied or otherwise generally ignored.
*This guy, unfortunately
What a shithead
Remember a lot about 2nd grade and events of that era. E.g., I got “German measles” that year.
At school there was a science fair-like thing. I made a rocket out of a cardboard tube and some aluminum foil. An ugly wad of foil for the “capsule”. I even remember what the better displays were. A kid with rosin and a string made weird noises with them. Another using nails and wire made a kind-of electric motor thing.
Lots of names of classmates. There were 3 of us with the same first name (1 with an alternate spelling). And so on.
Hmm, looking back I seem to remember even years (2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th) better than odd years (1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th). More interesting things seemed to happen those years. For 2nd grade it was my first year in a new place.
I remember a lot about it. We had just moved countries, so I had to get used to an entirely new school system, cultural differences, etc. I remember the first day of school vividly, my classroom, my teacher, the two classmates I sat with and how kind and welcoming they were (probably chosen for precisely these qualities, I now suspect; they were really nice kids). I was given a book that was far beneath my reading abilities, and I felt very embarrassed about that.
I can remember a great deal about that year, including specific assignments we worked on, the holiday performances we gave, various playground dramas, the details of the class routine, many more things. My teachers were among the best of my primary school years. It was all downhill after that as far as teachers were concerned (not entirely kidding).
That would have been 1960-61; I remember the school clearly (last time I was back there it was still operating as an elementary), but I was there from K-3rd grade and all the memories tend to blur together of that time (getting glasses, almost getting hit by a car, breaking my arm, trying to describe dinosaurs for show-n-tell). Only teacher I remember was my Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Harpster, who paddled me for the only time in my educational studies (I still claim it was a bum rap).
Somewhere deep in my archives I have a ‘yearbook’ with my class pictures; will have to look them up sometime.
Second grade was Mrs. Humphries, and she was not a good teacher. She was mean and yelled a lot. Other than that I can’t remember much specific.
Quality of memory and the type of things we remember definitely varies by individual. From first and second grade I can remember my teacher’s names( Berger and Monk, both very nice )and exactly three of my classmate’s name - Arthur from 1rst grade who I idolized, Mary-Anne from 1rst grade who was my first real crush* and Irfan from both 1rst and 2nd grade who was my best friend. That’s it. However I’m shit with names generally. If I met you tomorrow I might forget your name the day after.
I remember faces a little better. But mostly what I remember is vignettes. Dozens of discrete little memories of individual events that stamped themselves on my brain. I couldn’t tell you what the temporal sequence was except maybe the year and very occasionally a rough seasonality, but never a specific day. And they don’t form a continuous narrative, just a loose one.
- I had a brief “girlfriend” in kindergarten named Carmen( the only classmate name I retain from that year ), but she was fickle and I wasn’t that attached - I knew it was a temporary fling :p. Mary-Anne though, was the ONE. Sadly, though she was always kind to me she didn’t reciprocate my undying love - I blame her restrictive parents ;).
Mrs Kelly 1969? I was a very very shy kid. But I apparently found my soul mate with Kevin who sat next to me (not his real name I cant remember it!) and we would talk all the time. Got in trouble for it and had to write 50 times I will not talk in class. Mom was amused thought I was finally coming out of my shell. It was a tough writing assignment i do remember. When I tried to commiserate with kevin the next day about it, he shot me a surly look and never spoke to me again! I got over it!
I went to St Peter & Paul Catholic school for G1&2. The few memories I have of the place none of them can I place to second grade… but some I can place to first grade
Mrs. Bizelwiech (pronounced Bizzle-wick). We had a small workbench in the classroom and everyone made cutting boards. She was great.
I spent the whole year wearing an eyepatch do correct a lazy eye, which I exploited shamelessly to avoid work.
I remember the classroom. It was very white, unlike previous ones.
2nd grade was The Year We Got Back Together. You see, I went to The Nuns, and preschool at The Nuns was co-ed, but then in 1st grade we stayed in Lestonnac (the new building of The Nuns) but the boys went to San Francisco Javier, and they stayed there until 12th grade but we only stayed in Lestonnac until… I think it was 5th grade? when we moved to La Compañía (the original building of The Nuns). But anyway, 1968 happened to be the peak of the Spanish Baby Boom (pisses me no end when I see newspaper articles from people who can barely shave referring to Post-War Spaniards as “baby boomers” - no they’re fucking not!), so there weren’t enough decent teachers for both schools, so we re-merged. We’d been in Lestonnac for kindergarten and 1st grade, and the boys had moved to SFJ for 1st grade, but then we all went to La Compañía for 2nd grade!
But it was mainly the same boys we’d been in class with 2 years before, so, you know, it’s not the same as if we hadn’t already known each other. More like there had been this one really weird year in the middle during which half the class was missing.
And the curriculum hadn’t completely been adapted; I remember Mother García being as surprised by how good some of the boys were with their sewing (duh) as by my back-stitch being better than my forward-stitch (I still didn’t know I was cross-dominant). I think that may have been one of the reasons why we eventually got Sewing offered again as part of the 6th-8th grades pack of “non-academic subjects”.
Oh, and after 8th grade we all moved over to SFJ. For four years, I was at The Jesuits (AKA The Company of Jesus) and my brothers at The Nuns (AKA The Company of Mary) 
It’s “a very Company kind of town”.
I remember Mrs. Murphy, who picked her nose a lot, like a lot. I also remember one friend from that time, but that’s because she and I were in first grade through senior year in the same school, classes.
My teacher was a lesbian. I didn’t realize it at 8 years of age but, looking back, there is no doubt about it.
This isn’t meant to be any kind of value judgment. You asked what I remember, and that’s what I remember. LOL
I went to second grad in Taiwan, back in the 60’s. I remember the class, the layout of the class, and some of my friends’ names, but I can’t recall the teacher’s name. Two things stick out in my mind:
[ol]
[li]Typhoons: We had a typhoon shortly after school started for the year, and our class was flooded. There was a high-water mark on the chalkboard, and we had to take classes in another building for about a month while the damage was repaired. About a month after we returned to the classroom, there was another typhoon, which flooded the room about 6 inches higher than the previous one.[/li][li]The “Map Game”. We had a huge map of the world on the wall, and, if some of us had finished our assignments before the rest of the class, we could go play the “Map Game”. One of us would be “It”, and would get to choose a spot on the map, and then call it out. The others would have to try to find the location within 2 minutes. Whoever found the location got to be “It”; if the location was not found, “It” got to choose another location.[/li]
I was fairly tall for my age, and I always chose locations that were as far north as I could possibly see. (Sakhalin Island, anyone?) I LOVED playing this game, and credit it with helping me be better-than-average at geography, even to this day.
[/ol]