Elementary, My Dear Arun

Sometimes I look back and miss the days of elementary school. Lots of drawing, building things, recess, and easy homework. When someone had a birthday, the whole class got cupcakes! I received more valentines in one day in elementary school than I have in the combined years since!

The more I think about grade school though, the more I realize how many ineffective and somewhat useless things we spent time learning and practicing!

The Pledge of Allegiance:
I'm all for patriotism and think its important to establish a strong feeling of citizenship at a young age, but seriously, reciting the pledge everyday in grade school is a waste of time.

I said it everyday, yet didn't know what it REALLY meant until like sixth or seventh grade? All I knew was the routine of standing up, looking at the flag, putting my hand over my heart, and reciting this spiel.

For heaven sakes, I thought "...and to the Republic for which it stands" was actually "and to the Republic for Richard Stantz" for the longest time!

I always wondered who that guy was...

Studies have shown that most younger kids think "One nation under god, indivisible" is "One nation under god, invisible." Somehow, being a citizen of an "invisible" nation doesn't come off as very patriotic :)

Good intentions??? Yes
Does it Work?? No way Jose

Extra Curricular Teachers:
In most elementary schools, including mine, we had once or twice a week mandatory extra curriculars during the day such as music class, physical education, and library.

Let's start with music class. In elementary school, we went through four music teachers while I was there and none of them were particularly adept at anything musical. Sure they taught us some very rudimentary music history and we sang classics such as "Mama Sita," but none of the teachers had any profound musical talents.

I think I could teach a more effective music class than we had in grade school! At least we'd sing cooler songs than freaking "Mama Sita" or whatever the hell it's called.

Similarly, PE was so much fun, but it was only later on that I realized how not in shape my gym teacher was. Can we at least have someone in shape educate us on the importance of being healthy and active?

And speaking of out of shape gym teachers, I'll never understand why people pay big money to get trained by personal trainers who aren't in tip top shape! I mean, if they can't take care of themselves, how the hell am I supposed to trust them to take care of me?

Back to the rant.

How about the lessons we learned when we went to the school library? Reading is important, but seriously, I just remember spending years learning the damn Dewey Decimal cataloguing system. Honestly, who needs to know Dewey decimals except for librarians? When I go to a library, I use a computer (or the old fashioned card catalogue) to locate the section for my book. Who even remembers the Dewey Decimal?

I think I still remember the first three (0-100 is Biography, 100-200 Psychology and 200-300 is Religion...at least I have a backup career as a librarian) but aside from that, who really needs to spend so much time learning how to look up books in a library?

I remember my library teacher Mrs. Prockish, would give us a treat once we had checked out 8 books. We were only allowed to check out 2 books per week in library class which means it took about a month to get the treat. What was the treat you ask?

A jellybean...ONE FREAKING JELLY BEAN!

I will confess, I actually snuck an extra bean a few times and was never caught! In about third or Fourth grade, Mrs. Prockish introduced a new treat option! Now we had the choice of either ONE Jelly Bean or TWO Cheezits.

May her generosity never cease. (I still loved Mrs. Prockish by the way)

Despite these little shortcomings, I love elementary schools for funny little games that everyone plays. No matter where we'd go, everyone always wanted to be in the front of the line.

"Hey no Cuts! But, you can have Chinese cuts if you want."

Elementary School Dictionary of Terms: Chinese Cuts - allowing someone to get in line at the position immediately behind you...apparently this is how you cut lines in China.

Or the good ol' games that we'd play in the cafeteria at lunch:
"Last person who has their feet on the ground likes Stephanie!"
(Thundering sound of everyone's knees hitting the bottom of the table)

Inevitably someone would chime in:
"Nuh uh!!! Today's opposite day!"
(Thundering sound of everyone's feet hitting the ground)

Good ol' Elementary School. It's too bad bad I'll never do it again. At least I have the memory of being playground Tether Ball and Tag Champion!