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Someone else on my friends list was talking about her elementary school in the Sixties, and it reminded me of a story from when I was in elementary school.
I went to a Montessori school for kindergarten through second grade -- five years old through seven years old. Then, when I was eight, I transferred into my local public school system. That was 1982.
And, in general, I really feel that I got an excellent education there. Most of my teachers had been teaching since the Fifties, so my educational experience was more similar to that of my parents than that that children around here have now. But the teachers had gotten to the point that they allowed some intellectual freedom in the classroom -- my experience wasn't one of grinding conformity, not to the extent that you'd expect, anyway. We said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, but if you didn't say the "under God" part, that was okay. We didn't have any prayer in school, but we DID have a Moment of Silence, in which you COULD pray if you wanted -- some of my classmates would use it for the Lord's Prayer, I'd use it for the Sh'ma, and most would just veg out for half a minute or so.
There was only one teacher in elementary school who I really butted heads with. The music teacher. (Freshman year of high school, there was my English teacher, whom I TOTALLY butted heads with over her interpretation of Merchant of Venice, but that's another story, and, now that I'm an adult and have learned more, well, I STILL think I was right, but I can see her point a lot better than I did then.)
But, yeah. The music teacher. Specifically theChristmas Winter concert. Which, of course, WAS a Christmas concert. But with "I Have A Little Dreidel" stuck in.
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I went to a Montessori school for kindergarten through second grade -- five years old through seven years old. Then, when I was eight, I transferred into my local public school system. That was 1982.
And, in general, I really feel that I got an excellent education there. Most of my teachers had been teaching since the Fifties, so my educational experience was more similar to that of my parents than that that children around here have now. But the teachers had gotten to the point that they allowed some intellectual freedom in the classroom -- my experience wasn't one of grinding conformity, not to the extent that you'd expect, anyway. We said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, but if you didn't say the "under God" part, that was okay. We didn't have any prayer in school, but we DID have a Moment of Silence, in which you COULD pray if you wanted -- some of my classmates would use it for the Lord's Prayer, I'd use it for the Sh'ma, and most would just veg out for half a minute or so.
There was only one teacher in elementary school who I really butted heads with. The music teacher. (Freshman year of high school, there was my English teacher, whom I TOTALLY butted heads with over her interpretation of Merchant of Venice, but that's another story, and, now that I'm an adult and have learned more, well, I STILL think I was right, but I can see her point a lot better than I did then.)
But, yeah. The music teacher. Specifically the
( Read more... )