Perhaps you’re curious what the last week of school was like in the olden days.
That’s pretty easy. At the Damsel’s school, we went to class. Yup. Right up to the bitter end. The Damsel has noticed a great deal of the opposite going on lately. In one of her sprog’s classes, there was nothing grade-related going on during the last two weeks. Books were turned in, grades figured. The teacher turned on videos, but most of the students didn’t bother to show up.
In the olden days, we did have field day on the last day of elementary school, which consisted of mostly races of different sorts. The most memorable part for the Damsel was that this was the one and only day she was allowed to wear pants to school. Oh, and she recalls that she never, ever won any of those races…and back in those golden times, there were winners and losers, and no trophies for “participation.”
We also received our report cards on the last day of school, with the “cruel” sort of grades they used to use: A, B, C, D, F. On the bottom of the report card the teacher wrote whether you were being promoted to the next grade or not, in a neat little square box.
There was no such thing as elementary school graduations, and especially no preschool graduations. Actually, the Damsel didn’t know anyone who went to preschool.
In junior high and high school, the last day of school was Yearbook Signing. Unlike at the sprogs’ school, EVERYONE came for this and stayed all day.
The Damsel can’t remember her parents coming to any last-week-of-school activities except her high school graduation. But don’t feel sorry for her. There weren’t any other parents there either, so she didn’t feel left out. It’s different now, of course. The parents seem as busy as the kids.
Now, the Damsel isn’t saying the old ways were better. She’s just making the observation. And never mind about whether she herself is caught up in last-week-of-school craziness. She barely has time to write this post because, err, well, uh, she’s busy.
