School—Then and Now

oldman

oldman

Well-known Member
Location
PA
My wife and I were discussing our childhood differences between the things our parents told us what they did at recess or play time at home, the things that we did and the things that kids do today. The differences were staggering. My wife being a former professor grabbed a tablet and pen and said we should list the things we were told by our parents, the things we know that we did and now the things our grandkids tell us they did while in elementary school. It was actually surprising to some degree what the differences were comparing the past with today.

Do girls play hop scotch or jacks? Do boys play kick ball or tag? As I drive by elementary schools, I don’t see swings and seesaws anymore. What do kids play or do at recess today? Another issue that came up was our youngest granddaughter who is a senior in high school this year told us on Thanksgiving Day that two of the classes she attends, the teacher told the class that if they want to play on their phone to sit in the back and don’t bother the others that are trying to learn. Would that have happened in your day in your school? I can tell you that the school I attended, the answer is an unequivocally no.
 

I am old school in many ways and school is one of them.

At resess we played outside games like baseball, dodge ball, tag,played on swings all kinds of stuff. School today does not even compare to the schools of our youth!
 

oldman said:
the teacher told the class that if they want to play on their phone to sit in the back and don’t bother the others that are trying to learn. Would that have happened in your day in your school? I can tell you that the school I attended, the answer is an unequivocally no.
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Play on their phones? The closest thing to "technology" we were allowed to have was a slide rule.
 
There's no such thing as "recess" any more. Everything is organized and regimented.

We had recess and the activities consisted of a lot of screaming, the girls playing tag and screaming, and the boys punching each other and shouting. Sometimes, we just screamed. Recess was noisy, unorganized, and definitely worked off steam.

Occasionally, we played Red Rover and everyone had sore wrists for the rest of the day. Dodgeball was sometimes an activity, but the bullies would terrorize the weaker kids and I tried to avoid that.
 
There definitely is Recess ( Playtime ) here , particularly in the junior schools..( primary children up to the age of 11)... the kids get out to play mid morning , then again after lunch... however they don't play like we did with skipping ropes and balls et al.. they almost exclusively ''play'' with their phones.. except the younger ones who still like to run and play at a lot of the available activities

Example here... not a school in this town, but representative of British junior schools..

https://www.dundonald.merton.sch.uk/Playtime/

All that said, there is a growing trend to reduce school playtime in favour of scholarly activities, and is being fought hard against..

In the last few years the children have lost up to 60 minutes a week from not having a 20 minute break in the afternoon as we did as children...
 
My parents never talked about recess. I have no idea what goes on in schools nowadays.

I went to school in an underfunded town, and it was strictly 3 Rs.

We had a total of 2 hours in breaks (lunch and two recesses). That seems silly to me. Yes, we need breaks, but not that much. I guess the long lunch breaks were so we could go home for lunch -- which I don't think is usual now.
 
NorthernLight said:
My parents never talked about recess. I have no idea what goes on in schools nowadays.

I went to school in an underfunded town, and it was strictly 3 Rs.

We had a total of 2 hours in breaks (lunch and two recesses). That seems silly to me. Yes, we need breaks, but not that much. I guess the long lunch breaks were so we could go home for lunch -- which I don't think is usual now.
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when I was at school, we were in school for 8.50am , we had to be seated at Assemble by 9am our day ended at 4pm ..

We had a 15 minute break 10.30 am.. then lunch from 12 noon until 1.20pm.. ( and in that time my siblings and I walked (ran) a mile and a half miles home for lunch much of the time)... and in the afternoon we had another 15 minute break at 3pm..
 
hollydolly said:
when I was at school, we were in school for 8.50am , we had to be seated at Assemble by 9am our day ended at 4pm ..

We had a 15 minute break 10.30 am.. then lunch from 12 noon until 1.20pm.. ( and in that time my siblings and I walked (ran) a mile and a half miles home for lunch much of the time)... and in the afternoon we had another 15 minute break at 3pm..
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Very similar. And for my first 2 years, I lived a mile and a half away from school too. I didn't even take my coat off for lunch. I'd eat my sandwich and run back to school.
 
NorthernLight said:
Very similar. And for my first 2 years, I lived a mile and a half away from school too. I didn't even take my coat off for lunch. I'd eat my sandwich and run back to school.
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exactly the same as us... There was a bus stop outside of our house, and the bus ( not a school bus ).. stopped near our school.. and altho' we never had any money for fares.. if it rained or snowed.. we'd jump on the bus, and hope that the bus conductor would take his time collecting fares and we'd get a few stops up the road before we got off and he got to us to ask for money.. The fare was 2d.. (2 pre decimal pennies)... but my mother never could afford to give us the fare.. and my father would have been annoyed if she had..so essentially we walked to school and back 4 times a day...
 
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I really liked recess. Depending on the time of year determined what we wold do. I liked ball tag the best, coming in second was pickup games of basketball. In high school, there was no recess, but we did have free periods. I usually used that time to do my homework.
 
My elementary school lacked a cafeteria, and so we were all dismissed to walk home for lunch and then back in a time allotment of perhaps 50 minutes. I lived about a mile away from that school, and there was no busing in my small town. Walking was our norm, and it was safe to do so back then for any distance.

There was a morning and afternoon recess during my elementary years of perhaps 15 minutes duration each. The school provided low-tech devices like kickballs for organized games, while others preferred to play tag, simply chase one another, or climb on the steel bars of “jungle gyms” there that would never be allowed today. My school’s was mounted on a hard macadam surface rather than over grass or sand, but we survived as we used common sense…

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My grandfather was illiterate. My mom & dad only had a grade school education. Thankfully I went to college. My point being that what was an education for us is going to be the lack of an education for today's kids. Their world has totally different challenges than our world. I haven't been in a school in well over a half century, so I don't know what today's kids need. While we may be nostalgic about our school days, that may not be what today's kids need.
 
The wife and I sometimes frequent a coffee shop a block from a local high school. When I was a kid the way some of the girls dress would have gotten them sent home to put on some clothes. Times have changed.
 

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