Elementary School Days
I was inspired by friend Kristin’s blog to reminisce about old school days - literally. From the age of 5 until I was 14, I attended J.S. Waters Elementary school in Goldston, NC. The school was about 300-350 students, Kindergarten through 8th grade, and my mom taught 7th/8th grade Language Arts the entire time I was there. Yes, I was in her class. For 2 years!
I remember some random things about elementary school. I remember not being allowed to read during Kindergarten because the educational plan of the time was that everyone should be on the same level - bad plan. I remember getting to 1st grade and being allowed to choose from a huge shelf of books. And the teacher, Mrs. Funderburk, let us take some books home! I loved books even then!!! I remember our annual May Day Festival where each grade level did some type of performance during a school assembly - specific performances included dancing as duckies in yellow trash bags and in 4th grade when we had to do a couples’ dance and I was at least 4 inches taller than every boy in my grade. I remember doing a pretty intense science project involving petri dishes and bacteria in 7th grade, and the judges thought my parent’s had done the project for me. (They obviously didn’t know my parents - people who would encourage me with school work, but never do it for me). I remember playing Oregon Trail on a computer with no mouse and only green writing on a black screen. And I remember visiting the local high school toward the end of 8th grade for our orientation and to register for classes. Chatham Central is pretty small - the 2nd smallest public school in the state during my senior year - yet it seemed huge and scary to my 14-year-old self.
That’s the short version of my memories from a time period that most of the students with whom I now work don’t remember at all (because they weren’t born)…
2 years ago • Notes