Groupings and Teachers

 

In seventh grade all the elementary school kids from several schools in town were joined together at the Walter Parker Junior High for seventh and eighth grades .

It was a big change. Instead of having one classroom, one teacher, we changed classrooms with different teachers for English-Mrs. Tyack, Soc (social studies)-Mr. Butcher, Math-Mr. Ganley and Science-Mr. Copithorne.

First thing each morning we met with Mrs. Clementine Sudcak in homeroom. She was also the music teacher.

After homeroom, kids divided into their groups that moved together like a herd of cattle from classroom to classroom. We would be together for the entire year.

The groups were named after stars. When I looked up a list I couldn't find some of them including mine Castor if I remember the name correctly but I'm not sure I do.

We knew the smartest kids were in the As and then as the alphabet went down the kids were less and less intelligent. In high school two years later the A-D Kids would  take the college-bound courses. The lower letters would take the business courses.

What I didn't realize at the time, we were being taught class distinctions although I doubt that this was deliberate.

For eight grade the dumb kids ended up in the A star group and the smart kids were at the bottom of the alphabet. I wasn't fooled.

I remember most of my teachers.

Mrs. Tyack -- I never did care about the difference of intransitive and transitive verbs, although other parts of grammar were interesting. A little bit like building blocks only with words that could be moved around but with certain rules so the sentence would make sense.

Mr. Butcher was a big man with light colored hair. I remember he talked about interesting stuff like diseases in Africa and where different products and food came from. We would have contests between rows to review what we learned. I did the same thing when I taught business communication at Webster University in Geneva.

Mr. Copithorne was a great science teacher although my enjoyment depended on the subject. Geology, astronomy were fun. Weather not so much. He was the type of man that looked like he was in training to be a grandfather.

Mr. Ganley's class was the only time I enjoyed math, probably because I had a huge crush on him. He had beautiful eyes. I would think up excuses to talk to him after class. He handled it well but encouraged me to pay more attention.

It was 7th grade when my parents separated, a very rare thing then. The teachers gave the poor little girl from a broken home leeway and I milked it for all it was worth.

I don't know if the school still divides the kids the same way. I wonder if the teachers then arranged the material differently depending on the makeup of the group.

I'll never know.