I don’t know what's up with Blogger today. It's taken me
hours to get this post up. Maybe it just doesn't want to talk to me. Anyway, finally, here are my responses to this week’s Friday Five, courtesy of
RevGalBlog: “By Labor Day, school is back in session for most of us in the U.S., although there is great variation by region. . . . To mark this, we bring you the Back to School Friday Five.”
1. What is your earliest memory of school? Laying down for a “nap” in the kindergarten classroom and wondering why I wasn’t tired like eveyone else. Now I’m wondering why my three-year-old son isn’t tired at naptime like me, heh.
2. Who was a favorite teacher in your early education? In the late 1970s, my seventh grade math teacher—a burly, bearded, shagged-hair soul—would play us tapes of old radio programs while we did our work or during down time in class. On warm Arizona afternoons, we’d listen to the likes of H.G. Well’s War of the Worlds, the adventures of the Shadow and the broadcast report of the fall of the Hindenburg (“Oh, the humanity!”). Those afternoons are some of my fondest school memories. (Heh, my eighth grade math teacher—a pretty young woman with long blond hair—had humongous posters of the BeeGees and Saturday Night Fever along the walls above a line of windows and under the high ceiling of her classroom. When I close my eyes, I can still see Barry Gibb among his brothers and John Travolta striking his famous pose in that white suit.)
3. What do you remember about school “back then” that is different from what you know about schools now? I was going to say the clothes and style, but what goes around seems to come around—again. This morning, my eight-year-old daughter wore a tie-dye shirt to school, with her long blond hair (which I would have killed for in those days) framing her face exactly the way girls wore it back then. Déjà vu.
4. Did you have to memorize in school? If so, share a poem or song you learned. Heh, I can’t even remember if I took my B12 this morning. I don’t remember a song or poem, but I do remember all the helping verbs from my seventh grade English class, where the teacher made it a contest to see how fast we could recite them. I can still rattle them off in under six seconds, to the great awe of my daughter (and husband).
5. Did you ever get in trouble at school? Were there any embarrassing moments you can share? Nope, I’m a people pleaser. But I do remember when a new boy sitting behind me in junior high threw up on me. Yuk. But, looking back, I think it was definitely more embarrassing for him than for me. Poor guy.
(Image: by byrdiegyrl at flickr.com)
I don’t know what's up with Blogger today. It's taken me hours to get this post up. Maybe it just doesn't want to talk to me. Anyway, finally, here are my responses to this week’s Friday Five, courtesy of RevGalBlog: “By Labor Day, school is back in session for most of us in the U.S., although there is great variation by region. . . . To mark this, we bring you the Back to School Friday Five.”