As I took my son to school this morning, I was telling him some recollections of how things were when I was in high school (which meant grades 7 through 12). I was talking about the time when I was roughly the age my son is now.
First of all, I do not recall the school administrators being strict about absences. Of course, we needed to have an excused absence but today's schools get very worked up about excused absences. I haven't had to go down the path of unexcused absences for me or my children so that is a completely different topic all together. I am just talking about excused absences.
It seemed to me that school administrators of the time just accepted that students would be absent for things like funerals and other family events and that families might go out of town for other reasons. I was not absent very often and so maybe I never ran afoul of rules? I do not know.
Today, at least for the intermediate and middle schools, in order to take my kids out of school for a vacation, I have to plan a "learning" vacation, provide an itinerary in advance of learning activities we will do on vacation and, in some instances, classes require that the kids do homework while on vacation or write up the vacation experience for the teachers (the equivalent of "what I learned on my vacation") AND when the kids come home, they are required to find out what work they missed and submit it within a few days of returning home. I can recall vacations with my children where we had to pack textbooks and then hope we didn't leave them behind in hotels. My recollection of my elementary and high school time is we just went on vacation or on school activities, we came back, and we went on with learning. If we missed learning about fractions while we were gone, we just missed it. Period. (In third grade, I went to California, for a cousin's wedding, and I missed the introduction to fractions, so my example isn't entirely fictitious.)
Second of all, I do not recall ever having to make up school work (except perhaps in Mr. Dickman's class) after an excused absence (the only kind I had except for a few "skips" of seminary one year), whether it was for a school activity, illness, or some kind of family absence. I was involved in some extra-curricular activities that involved missing classes and I was sick on occasion. I have no recollection of making up any school work that I missed while out of school for an excused absence. I don't recall a teacher ever saying, "Oh, by the way, while you were gone we read War and Peace and you'll need to read it by tomorrow." I don't recall the discouragement of being handed a three-inch stack of papers that I'd missed and being told, "Finish these in two days."
Third of all, I do not remember having homework very often (except perhaps for Mr. Dickman's class), if ever. This could have been that I was a fast worker in class. I always took it as a personal failure if I had to take something home to work on after class, so I must have thought we were just supposed to finish assignments in class. This could have been that teachers (except Mr. Dickman) just didn't give out homework. Maybe there was the odd assignment here and there but not every single night nor even once a week. I do recall having to bring a newspaper article every single day for Mr. Church's 6th grade class (because I forgot basically every single day) and that falls in the category of homework. However, I couldn't have just ignored homework (like one of my children prefers to do) or I would have had dismal grades. I do recall that once I was in college, it was a complete shock to my system that ALL classes required homework and it took a while for that "personal failure" feeling about homework to go away.
Fourth, we did not have computers so we could not check our grades to know we had missed assignments or know in advance what grades we were earning in our classes. We'd just get our report card every quarter and, viola, we received the grade we'd earned--good or bad.
Grades always seemed a total surprise to me--a kind of grade lottery which by that point seemed to me to be disconnected to anything I might have done or not done for the past quarter. This could be my personality coming out--a "we get what we get" attitude. I do recall a friend telling me she talked with high school teachers about assignments and tests and discussed how to get higher grades (she was valedictorian, so see what that attitude gets ya??). Of course, this wouldn't have occurred to me. I just accepted the grades on my report card and went on.
After I recounted this tale of a veritable Camelot High School, my son sighed and wished aloud that he could go to such a school! Actually, J is a very conscientious student with good grades (keeping a vigil on all missed assignments and actually talking with teachers when need be); however, a "kinder, gentler" school life sounded great to him.
OK, now for my dose of reality. What is your recollection? Has my memory become corrupt? Was I just spinning yarns this morning or were things a bit more laid back when we were in school? Am I just in my La La Land of Memories or have things changed?
6 comments:
I didn't have Mr. Dickman for any classes- so I didn't have any homework- ever. At least none that I recall. And I don't ever remember studying for tests either. (Did I block that out?) I don't remember missing much school so that part doesn't apply to me but I do think it was a 'kinder, gentler' school...and time. It irritates me that kids have to pay for being absent- even if they are excused.
Goodness, I really don't remember very well. I wasn't absent very much although I do remember my mom sometimes taking me out of school for the afternoon, so we could go shopping. Are you surprised?
My experience now (teaching college) is that my students think if they have "excused" absences, they should be allowed to make up all their work when they return to class. Nope. Doesn't work that way in college. :-)
I have the same memories!
I do remember thinking that I would try for 4.0 my senior year and worked my head off and got the same grades as if I didn't do anything!!
So I quit trying and kept the same grades as usual which was not bad grades anyway! So I too felt that you get what you get no matter!
I don't remember much homework either?
Maybe your example of not having any made us all try to have none to bring home..?? Mr.Dickman did do homework!! And I never had to make up work either!!
I kind of remember things the same way, I wasn't absent much other than for sporting events (traveling on game day, etc.) so in those cases we did have to take homework with us sometimes, just to keep the grade point up so we could cheer. I loved Mr Dickman, I learned the most from him as a teacher (took him 3 years in HS) and we did study for his tests, like crazy. On occasion a teacher would allow you to do "extra" work to bring your grades up, but other than that, they were what they were. Remember R. Hinton? He used to dock a 1/2 a grade for talking and there was no way to make that grade up. I went from an A to C in one day, YIKES! Well, I could write an editorial on this suject so I'll leave it at that. Kids and parents and schools and all of it is so different now from when we were growing up, to go there I would probably need a soapbox....
I'm coming up on my 40 year reunion this summer, definitely from the "decades ago" category. Very interesting to learn how things were different here. I think every school has a "Mr. Dickman", at mine it was Mrs. Jordan who told us all that we would never make it in college if we didn't improve our study habits GREATLY! She gave double or triple the homework of anyone else, but it was a rare night I didn't carry home a book from 4 different classes to "continue the work" from the daytime . . .
Your memory matches mine almost to the "T"! I do not ever remember my parents being involved in my learning or attending "back to school nights" or anything. I think I was just expected to do well on my own without a lot of help.
The only thing I do remember my mom helping me with was spelling words in Elementary.
Love reading your blog.
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