Melissa Call

9/25/00

Daniel Greenfield

Multigenerational Schooling Paper

Schools Then and Now

Education in America has changed greatly in the last fifty years. I interviewed my neighbors Loretta and Fred along with my parents. From what they told me I was quite surprised in how things were when they went to school. In this paper I will discuss how each had experiences and how things have changed from then to now.

I will begin with Fred my neighbor. He grew up in a very small town in PA. His elementary school consisted of two buildings with one classroom in each building. Keep in mind they had no kindergarten. Inside one of the buildings it housed grades one through four all in one room with one teacher who taught all the subject matter for each grade level. The second building housed grades five through eight, also in one room with one teacher who taught all the subject matter for each grade level. He was in the same classroom with his brothers and sisters all of elementary school. While the teacher taught one grade level the other children did seatwork. He had to walk to school 1-½ miles each morning and then 1-½ miles back at the end of the day. There was a coal stove in the middle of the classroom and the students carried in the coal and kept the stove going in the winter. There were no extracurricular activities and they had to carry their lunch each day.

In high school he rode the bus, nobody had cars to drive to school. As far as activities they had a football team and a band that is it. If you misbehaved the teacher could swat you and the parents didn’t object because they figured you had it coming to you. They had very little homework, but did learn a lot because kids didn’t get out of line.

Now Loretta went to a Catholic elementary school and had sisters for teachers except for the gym teacher who was a layperson. Everyone walked to the neighborhood school, no buses. There was no cafeteria so you ate in the classroom or went home if you lived close enough. The sisters often wrapped boys over the knuckles with a ruler if they got out of line or stood them in the hall or kept the boys/girls after school to clean the classroom. You would not only be in trouble at school but at home to if the sisters sent a note home. In third through eighth grade they also had split classes. There was a graduation ceremony/party when you finished eighth grade.

When Loretta attended high school it was a Catholic all girls school and had sisters for all classes, a priest for religion and a layperson for gym. Everyone wore uniforms, saddle shoes or loafers. That way the parents saved a lot on clothes and nobody out dressed the other person. She had to take three public buses to and from school each day, nobody drove since there was only one car in a family and dad took that to work. Since it was an all girls’ school they didn’t have football, basketball, baseball or other teams competing in athletic conferences. They played sports through the local CYO or on their own. The girls would sponsor dances and invite the all boys’ schools to attend. They also had proms. For assembly they had the Four Lads, Ames Brothers and local DJ Bill Randle to name a few. They had put on plays, visited orphanages during the holidays, and had a school newspaper and yearbook staff. In her junior year they had a ceremony/party in which they received their rings. They had a trip to Washington and Chicago. They had school retreats and for three days there was silence (no talking at school) prayer and guest speakers. There was one-way traffic so if your class was next door and you went the wrong way you had to go all the way around up/down stairs to reach it. They got a lot of homework and had to write everything out, nobody could afford typewriters and there were no computers. Nobody dared to talk back or act up with the sisters or you were really in trouble at home. No such thing as suspensions back then either. She said she learned a lot and had great fun even if it was an all girls’ school. Life was simpler then and everyone was there to get a good education. Not many girls went to college except if you wanted to be a teacher or nurse, everyone else was expected to get married and money was tight and most families could not afford extra schooling. Parents expected you to behave, pay attention, get your homework done and get a good education to serve you well in the days ahead when you went to work so you’d be a productive citizen.

Now to my mom and dad, they had the same experiences with school. They both went to parochial elementary school called St. Mary’s. They had nuns teaching most classes and very few lay teachers. The lay teachers mainly taught sixth through eighth grade. St. Mary’s went from grades one through eight, but when they got in seventh grade they separated the girls from the boys for the obvious reasons (girl/boy stuff). My mom said that when her and my dad were in elementary school they were polite, they had respect and understanding for teachers and fellow classmates. You never spoke out in class unless you raised your hand and you did not say anything unless the teacher called on you to answer a question. When the bells rang everyone was seated and quiet. The same for high school was to be expected. They would have class discussions, but they were structured on specific on specific topics relating to whatever the class was about. In elementary school they didn’t have too many outside activities. They had skating parties in the gym on Saturday afternoons once in awhile. They would have a school carnival in the spring with baked goods, home crafts, games and prizes. They offered piano lessons at the convent for an additional cost during school hours. They had a football team but not much for girls to do. Every once in awhile they would have a Valentine or Halloween dance for the seventh and eighth grade. They went to church every first Friday of the month for mass. They would sit with their class or boy, girl until the seventh grade because of the splitting up of the boys and girls. In grade school the girls wore dresses, shirt, skirt and boys wore dress pants and a button down shirt. No one wore jeans or t-shirts, no tennis shoes except on gym days they would bring tennis shoes and change into them when it was time for gym. In high school they always dressed nice and around their senior year they finally allowed girls to wear pantsuits to school and boys jeans and tennis shoes. They had all high school sports, but more for boys the girls had cheerleading. There were school organizations like yearbook, the paper, student council and etc. There was also a program offered to them in which they would go to school for half a day and work the other half. My mom did that; she had morning classes and worked at Sears in Painesville in the afternoon.

My schooling experiences were quite different from my neighbors and my parents. I went to elementary school from kindergarten to fifth grade. We had skating parties and carnivals but that was about it. Then in sixth grade I went to the middle school and we changed classrooms and had different teachers for almost every class. We put our stuff in lockers and there weren’t many culturally different people in my school district. There were very few blacks that I went to school with. We had school dances and we had tons of opportunities in sports for boys and girls. Then in seventh grade they split up the seventh grade and half stayed at one school the other half went to the junior high. Things remained pretty much the same through out junior high. Things started to change people began to find their identity. People would get into cliques and dress a certain way whether it be gothic or in Abercrombie. People would totally be judgmental, but I felt that I liked everyone. People would be very disrespectful in the classroom by speaking out with out raising their hand. Not everyone but there was a majority that had not one ounce of respect. People started dressing in all black with huge pants and heavy metal shirts with chains and spiky hair. Then K-mart all of a sudden wasn’t the place to shop anymore. It was places where it would cost fifty bucks for a sweater. Some kids didn’t go to school to learn, but just as a way to get out of their house and away from their families. I didn’t feel that way though I felt I was there to learn. I was involved in the marching band and regular band; we would go on trips to Florida and we made a CD and did other things. There was prom and homecomings when you got into the high school. Everyone would go to the football games on Friday nights to cheer the players on. Schools also faced many problems with in the last few years with shootings and threats. In my high school kids found that to be interesting for some odd reason and then thought to do stupid stuff. With the all these issues that the students caused they brought in security guards and cops. I graduated with a large number of students about three hundred and thirty. When you graduate high school and go your separate ways you find out who your true friends really are.

In conclusion, from the time my neighbors graduated in the 50’s and my parents in the 60’s and 70’s to now there was change. In that time period students respected their fellow classmates and most of all they respected teachers. Today that isn’t really happening in schools, students badmouth their teachers and each other. Sometimes friends are determined by material issues, meaning in what you wear or how you act. After listening to what my neighbors and parents said I was in total shock in how education and schools have changed with in the last fifty years. What will it be like in the future? Who knows, classes could be held over the computers, but as my title says that was then and this is now, but who know what the future will hold.