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A nail-biting story from the 50s!

June 29, 2022 - 00:00
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All this talk about our public schools and vouchers has made me think about my days at Helms Elementary School in the 1950s. To get a glimpse of life at Helms, look no further than a DVD of “The Christmas Story,” without the snow, of course!

My school experience was very much like Ralphie’s - little wooden desks with inkwells, blackboards and real books. In the absence of Flick and his flagpole, most of our distractions revolved around the occasional duck-and-cover air raid drills and control of the floor fan in our non-air-conditioned 1950s schools.

PTA mothers with decorated Valentine and Christmas cookies, school Halloween carnivals, Monday paper drives, innocently dancing around the Maypole epitomized the 50s. Most notably, we didn’t have misbehaving students disrupting our class without consequences.

Contrast that with today. A family member who is an employee in a neighboring school district has witnessed teachers spending 25-min utes of a 45-minute class disciplining one or two profanity-spewing students at the expense of the 20 others in the room. To add insult to injury, the bad actor isn’t removed from the classroom, therefore, everyone suffers and learning is an exercise in futility.

Back in the day, punishment for bad behavior was swift and fit the crime. We didn’t have Scott Farkas and his toadies beating people up and stealing their lunch money but we had Eugene who had quite a potty mouth for one so young. Eugene visited the principal’s office frequently and while I don’t know what fate befell him there, I do know he was not allowed to disrupt our class of 30-plus students. Yes, we actually had THAT many students in our class! And guess what? We still learned! Our education was not compromised and held hostage by the disruptive few and the rest of us knew to behave ourselves.

I’m not saying we were angels. We passed notes, threw an occasional paper airplane and whispered when the teacher was writing on the blackboard but if caught, there were consequences. Minor infractions often meant staying after school to acknowledge admission of guilt on the blackboard. That embarrassment served as a deterrent of sorts. Plus, no kid wanted to miss out on their after school play time, certainly not me!

In full disclosure, yours truly had to stay after school once, well maybe twice. I do have a faint memory of writing “I will not talk in class” somewhere in the recesses of my mind. But in this instance, I was in the third grade when I colored my fingernails with a red crayon. Don’t ask me why I did that - I have no idea! I was a nail-biter so it’s a miracle I had anything to color at all but at least I wasn’t one of the Elmer’s Paste eaters!

Anyway, I had to write something about my transgression in my Big Chief tablet 100 times before I could go home that day. Missing my after school play time was absolute torture for me and I was petrified at the very thought of telling my mom what I’d done because getting in trouble at school would mean a spanking at home. To be honest, I think I pulled a Ralphie, sort of like the icicle in the eye story, only my version was that I walked home very…very… very slow!

Over the years I’ve become a pretty quick study when it comes to crime and punishment. I don’t have to make the same mistake more than once, well maybe twice, to learn my lesson. I pay a professional to color my nails for me now!

The column represents the thoughts and opinions of Connie Clements. Opinion columns are NOT the opinion of the Navasota Examiner.

Clements is a freelance reporter for the Navasota Examiner and an award-winning columnist.