Has a horse five legs?
Making a daily entry easy on myself by doing another question meme. Primary school memories this time.
What was your favorite piece of playground equipment when you were a kid?
I don't think I had a favourite. Swings?
What do you remember about your first-grade teacher? Pick the earliest grade teacher you remember, if you don’t remember anything about your first-grade teacher.
This is slightly tricky as I try to work out what first-grade means. I suspect it is your first year of school? But here (in Victoria, not sure about other Australian states) the first year of school is called Prep. Grade One is the second year of school. Obviously.
It doesn't matter, because I had the same teacher for both. I went to a tiny, one-room primary school in the country that only had two teachers. Miss McNamara was in charge of Prep, Grade One and Grade Two; Sister Adalbert was in charge of Grades Three to Six. Miss McNamara was young with a gap between her front teeth. She had a fondness for floral dresses with lace collars. She got married at some point during those years and became Mrs Mills. All her students went to her wedding and put lace horseshoes on her wrist as she and Mr Mills walked out of the church. I liked Miss McNamara because she sat me down one day and said she was going to start giving me harder maths to do because she thought I was very clever.
What’s an especially memorable field trip you took with a class in your very early years?
We were taken to Melbourne (about three hours on a bus) once. Quite the sensation we caused, a group of children between five and eleven marching everywhere in our crocodile lines of grey uniforms and navy ties. We went to Old Melbourne Gaol, which had posed mannequins in old prison uniforms in the cells. The uniforms were stamped with PD (for "Prison Department" or some such), only one of my fellow students was called Patrick Dooley and some wag suggested it was him. How we laughed. Later in the day we also went to Melbourne Zoo and I bought a bright orange souvenir mug.
What are some fads you remember from your elementary school days? Did you get into them?
There were only twenty-five children in my whole school, so we didn't really have fads. Not enough of us.
When I started secondary school in the City by the Sea, I was in the same class as a group of girls who had come from the City by the Sea's largest primary school. I remember one of them saying in Grade Six they had had a fad for tying the ends of a length of wool together and wearing it as a sash. I mean... we never went in for nonsense like that.
If your elementary school had food service, what’s a lunch you were especially fond of, and what’s a lunch you were especially not fond of?
Primary school. And food service would be... a canteen or cafeteria? We didn't run to that. We brought lunchboxes to school, which, given the era, was sandwiches and fruit and a biscuit/slice of cake. I was a picky eater who didn't like squishy sandwiches, so my lunchbox had deconstructed sandwiches that I could assemble myself or eat separately: a slice of bread and butter, some shredded meat, assorted salad vegetables.
Once a week, people could order a hot lunch (meat pie, pasty or sausage roll) from the town's store, which was about a hundred metres from the school. Parents would order and pay at the store during the morning, and Mr Bolden the shop keeper would deliver the orders to the school a lunch time. I was never allowed to do this.
What was your favorite piece of playground equipment when you were a kid?
I don't think I had a favourite. Swings?
What do you remember about your first-grade teacher? Pick the earliest grade teacher you remember, if you don’t remember anything about your first-grade teacher.
This is slightly tricky as I try to work out what first-grade means. I suspect it is your first year of school? But here (in Victoria, not sure about other Australian states) the first year of school is called Prep. Grade One is the second year of school. Obviously.
It doesn't matter, because I had the same teacher for both. I went to a tiny, one-room primary school in the country that only had two teachers. Miss McNamara was in charge of Prep, Grade One and Grade Two; Sister Adalbert was in charge of Grades Three to Six. Miss McNamara was young with a gap between her front teeth. She had a fondness for floral dresses with lace collars. She got married at some point during those years and became Mrs Mills. All her students went to her wedding and put lace horseshoes on her wrist as she and Mr Mills walked out of the church. I liked Miss McNamara because she sat me down one day and said she was going to start giving me harder maths to do because she thought I was very clever.
What’s an especially memorable field trip you took with a class in your very early years?
We were taken to Melbourne (about three hours on a bus) once. Quite the sensation we caused, a group of children between five and eleven marching everywhere in our crocodile lines of grey uniforms and navy ties. We went to Old Melbourne Gaol, which had posed mannequins in old prison uniforms in the cells. The uniforms were stamped with PD (for "Prison Department" or some such), only one of my fellow students was called Patrick Dooley and some wag suggested it was him. How we laughed. Later in the day we also went to Melbourne Zoo and I bought a bright orange souvenir mug.
What are some fads you remember from your elementary school days? Did you get into them?
There were only twenty-five children in my whole school, so we didn't really have fads. Not enough of us.
When I started secondary school in the City by the Sea, I was in the same class as a group of girls who had come from the City by the Sea's largest primary school. I remember one of them saying in Grade Six they had had a fad for tying the ends of a length of wool together and wearing it as a sash. I mean... we never went in for nonsense like that.
If your elementary school had food service, what’s a lunch you were especially fond of, and what’s a lunch you were especially not fond of?
Primary school. And food service would be... a canteen or cafeteria? We didn't run to that. We brought lunchboxes to school, which, given the era, was sandwiches and fruit and a biscuit/slice of cake. I was a picky eater who didn't like squishy sandwiches, so my lunchbox had deconstructed sandwiches that I could assemble myself or eat separately: a slice of bread and butter, some shredded meat, assorted salad vegetables.
Once a week, people could order a hot lunch (meat pie, pasty or sausage roll) from the town's store, which was about a hundred metres from the school. Parents would order and pay at the store during the morning, and Mr Bolden the shop keeper would deliver the orders to the school a lunch time. I was never allowed to do this.