It's that time of year again, Back to School time. Episode 82 of the podcast is the monthly bonus episode. This month we look at going back to school, or more appropriately, going to school for the first time.
From school shopping, riding the bus, lunch, recess, field day, field trips, and other overall initial memories of education it will be a fun trip down memory lane, or perhaps nightmare fuel for those who did not enjoy school.
This episode looks at elementary school, in particular, kindergarten through 5th Grade, and all of the specifics that went along with it. Whether you began school in the early 1980s, earlier, or more recently, the memories of those first years in school are something that we all can relate to.
Helpful Links from this Episode(available through Buzzsprout)
Listen to Episode 81 here.
It's that time of year again, Back to School time. Episode 82 of the podcast is the monthly bonus episode. This month we look at going back to school, or more appropriately, going to school for the first time.
From school shopping, riding the bus, lunch, recess, field day, field trips, and other overall initial memories of education it will be a fun trip down memory lane, or perhaps nightmare fuel for those who did not enjoy school.
This episode looks at elementary school, in particular, kindergarten through 5th Grade, and all of the specifics that went along with it. Whether you began school in the early 1980s, earlier, or more recently, the memories of those first years in school are something that we all can relate to.
Helpful Links from this Episode(available through Buzzsprout)
Listen to Episode 81 here.
Hello World, and welcome to the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund. Coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and this is episode 82. This is our typical special monthly bonus episode, where we take a deep dive into one specific topic. And I figured, with this being the end of August, the end of summer, at least for kids and tourists, the mind starts to drift to going back to school.
If you're a kid, that's a bad thing. If you're a parent, that's a great thing. But one thing is for sure we all can relate to the feelings of going back to school, whether that was dread if you hated school, or anticipation if you kind of enjoyed it what I want to do here with this bonus episode is look back at my first memories of school, which will surely bring up your first memories of school. And we can take a fun trip down memory lane. So let's open up the attic and start going through some boxes. As we look back at our first memories of school here on episode 82 of the In My Footsteps Podcast.
I'm sure memories of school are going to be different for you depending on your age. But for me what I'm going to talk about as far as first memories of going to school, I'm looking at kindergarten, first and second grade. If you went to preschool and have memories, God bless you. But I kind of want to look at the firsts and how we adapt to them as kids and how that kind of shapes us as adults. I started school in the early 1980s. So right there, you can kind of date me. According to my mother, I did go to preschool, but it only lasted a few weeks. I don't have memories of it. But it was a place on Cape Cod in the town of Dennis called Scargo School. That school is actually still around, but I have no memories of it, I would have been three or four years old. And yeah, I do have memories from that age. But I don't know about you. But my memories from that period are fewer and further between. And they're kind of painted with a 70s haze. If you can go and look at old 70s commercials and TV shows and how they look that's almost like how my memories looked from back then. So do you remember kindergarten? You would have likely been five or six years old. An interesting thing that became a recurring theme throughout my life going through school was my birthdate. There was a cut-off time in the calendar year where if you were born before it you were in one year, if you were born after you had to go to school the next year. And I was kind of in this gray area where when I was little my few friends that I had, were all a few months older. But that ended up being the cut-off. So my friends all kind of went to school before me. And then when I went to school, I was much older than all the kids in my grade, not much older, like I was 10. And they were three but you know, a few months older, where I was in this gray area. I don't remember if I took the bus. That was a weird thing about school getting on a bus that came and got you from your house, those classic yellow buses with those green vinyl-type seats that smelled weirdly and they had no seat belts. So God help you if something happened, you just slide and the anticipation and the fear if you got on the bus first and having a certain kid sit with you like you wanted to have friends but you were afraid to make friends. I was very much introverted in school through the first few years. That was until I found girls that I liked and then all of a sudden I was class clown, which you know, at times got me in trouble. But take a minute and think back whatever your age is currently. What is your first memory when you think of school? Like the oldest memory not like the best time you've ever had in high school or something, but what's the first thing that pops in your head? For me? It's a song. The song was called Scamper sung by a man named Hap Palmer off of his album Witch's Brew. Scamper, scamper to your house. I can't remember if it was kindergarten or first grade, but the idea was we would run around the room so at first, the song is slow. So you tiptoe, and then it would get faster and you'd run, run, run, run, run. I'm sure it was possibly the teacher trying to tire us out. Because I think we had naptime even in kindergarten when the lights would be out, because let's face it, kindergarten, it's a step up from preschool. But it's not that much different. The teacher's job is basically to make sure you don't hurt other kids or hurt yourself. Yeah, you learn things like the alphabet and Numbers and shapes. But it's not that serious. That's why it's only a half day, usually. My first school is not a school anymore. It became a college campus. And then that shut down. But my kindergarten teacher was Mrs. Kelly. And I can still remember her. And it was interesting because 30 years after I had her, she came into the restaurant where I was working. I can't remember how she knew I was there. Or if it was just a coincidence that she happened to find me. But that was mind-blowing to see your kindergarten teacher as an adult. Because when you're a kid, adults seem like they're 15 feet tall, and the wisdom of Einstein. But in reality, you're in your formative years, and they're fully grown. So then there you are both as adults, and it's just an interesting, full circle type moment.
Did any of you ever bump into your kindergarten first second grade teachers later in life? I've mentioned Miss Rodriguez, my second-grade teacher who was the one who influenced my life the most, and how I brought her to the book launch party for my fourth book about five years ago. So I stayed in touch with her. And Mrs. Kelly found me later in life. My first-grade teacher is one that I've never seen or heard from again after that year. It was during the year that I didn't hear from her again. First grade, I'm what, seven years old. My teacher was Mrs. Colton, I believe was her name. And what ended up happening was, she got pregnant. And so she had to leave during the year. They found a replacement. It was one of the kids in the class, his mother was a teacher substitute, so she took over for half the year. But those were the teachers. Before you get to school, you've got to do school shopping. In elementary school, school, shopping is nothing, it's clothes, you don't really need much of anything. I'm trying to think of when I needed to bring things to school, like a binder or calculator or pencils and pens, I believe kindergarten through second grade, they provided all that because there wasn't a lot of homework you had to do. And I think a lot of what was taught in those first few years, you could just listen and learn it. Drawing shapes and drawing one through 10 and writing the alphabet. That's not that much effort. And I think school shopping those first few years, those of you that are parents now, it's like it's not that hard, because you kind of get things for your kids that you think looks good. So you don't really have to unless they hate it. You don't have to worry about their opinions. I believe that my biggest opinions during those first few years of school came from shoes. I'm the oldest of five kids so I was the first one to go to school. My mother took me to stride right shoes, and we kind of had to get sized but then you just look for sneakers that speak to you. Little kids' shoes aren't that expensive. But back then in the early to mid 1980s. The big brands especially for kids wear Puma and Roos. I think I had a pair of each of those at some point. velcro shoes with the two little strips of Velcro that you just pull across when you're too little to know how to tie your shoes. You just had the Velcro. Just rip them off like that. I know Nikes were around and Reeboks were around but I don't know if they made little kids Nikes and Reeboks back then if they did I never saw them. Of course, you always want it to look cool. When you went to school even back then you wanted other kids to like you and talk to you. But the only time that you needed to look nice and presentable was picture day. That was when I would have my hair nicely combed and parted back then when I actually had hair. My mother would pick out a good outfit because she was going to be paying for the pictures. TD Brown was the person or company that came and took our photos. And I remember that because I would wonder if their full name was Touchdown Brown. Because that's, you know, the humor of kids that are eight to 10 years old. Did you have any picture days where you had really terrible photos? Mine were never really bad. They were kind of snapshots of adolescence, and puberty, especially getting towards fifth sixth seventh grade, where you could tell that I was starting to develop, they didn't have concealer for acne. So I mean, God, and then like trying to learn how to smile for pictures, which I couldn't figure out. So I either have too much teeth or too much top gums with my smiles. And of course, as parents, you say, oh, it looks great. You look adorable. But I'm sure some of you parents saw your kid's photos and said, Oh, my God, what's happened? I can't pay for these. And back then in the 80s, into the early 90s, you could get the really cool laser backgrounds. Now they just look so dated. But back then it was like, Ooh, I got lasers in my pictures. Yeah, it's great looking now, school back then the first few years were really easy when you look back at it. Sure, you had to get up relatively early, back in the day when you didn't have any sort of schedule, eat breakfast catch the bus, and get to school. But there wasn't anything for homework. What is it draw shapes at home, or learn to count to 10, maybe learn geography, some real basic stuff, you'd sit in the same class with the same teacher. You would have three times during the week when you would be able to leave the class daily, you would have lunch and then recess. And then other times you would have gym class.
1980s school lunch with those hard plastic trays. I don't remember everything that would be on the menus for school lunch, especially down here on Cape Cod in New England. But every kid I believe had the same favorites when it came to lunch. And that was either Chicken Nuggets with mashed potatoes day, or of course pizza day. Think we had square slices you get a square slice of pizza, those little tiny cartons of milk, maybe chocolate, Ooh, there's a special occasion. The hardest part was trying to figure out where to sit. Likely, within a few weeks of being in school, you had at least a couple of friends who made up your little clique. Usually, it was a balanced meal. So you'd have some kind of vegetable, which most kids wouldn't eat. I can't remember about desserts. If we had Hoodsie cups, or jello, something real basic because if the lunch ladies are making things for a couple of 100 kids, it's got to be easy and basic. But then it was time for recess, which typically consisted of just playing tag or playing on the playground running around. At my first school, the playground area was fenced in. But on the other side was a giant hedge maze kind of, and through that was a hotel. I remember always wanting to have the guts to go through because it was a little crack we found that we could have as 7, 8, 9 year olds, we could have gotten through it and gone into the hotel parking lot. But I never had the guts to go through it because I didn't know how much trouble I'd get into. And if you got in trouble. You knew what happened. You had to go on the fence when they called it. Basically, you had to go stand at a fence post. There would be the chaperone out there watching everyone at recess. And if you got in trouble, you had to stand on the fence. Sometimes it was for a few minutes like being in timeout. Other times it was for the whole recess. Other times it was for the whole week. Go out there for recess like nope stand at the fence. I'm sure it was different for others. When you were in elementary school. What was the protocol? If you got in trouble at recess? Was there something like standing on the fence or do they send you inside? I had no experience as far as if you got sent to the principal's office as a seven, eight-year-old. I met my principal a bunch because I was a really good student. So my interactions with Mr. McArthur the principal were all good ones. He ended up passing away relatively young. I think he was in his early 60s And they ended up naming my elementary school after him before it closed. Do you remember your first principal I would assume like me unless you got in trouble a bunch you wouldn't really remember. I mentioned my around-the-world math game conquests back in episode 58. I also talked a little bit about having a penmanship class which I think has been lost to time. I mentioned that a little we had a man named Mr. Moran, who would come in, I think it was once weekly and teach us cursive handwriting. I don't know how many of the younger generation even know how to do cursive handwriting, where the letter Q looks like a two etc. But even back then things like penmanship class broke from the norm. They were a lot of fun. I believe even back then, we had every now and then TV shows or film strips, film strips god, there's a dated phrase, we would watch Reading Rainbow with LeVar Burton back when it was actually first run. I mean, it might still be around. But this show came out in the early 80s. I think part of our assignments would be to read the books that he talked about. The film strips were all basic, and they would have the kind of faded, usually animated photos, they'd be kind of faded because they were from the 60s or 70s. And sometimes the voice that went along with it because you'd have to play music, and it was separate from the filmstrip. So there'd be a point in the audio that it would make a beep noise and there'd be someone running the film projector, so you'd have to flip to the next frame. Then later on, probably in middle school, you had to deal with the overhead projectors, you'd have to pull down the projector screen, and then there'd be a clear sheet transparent sheet put on the overhead. Typically for math. Those were the times when it was darker in class. I'm sure a lot of kids just zoned out. But I wanted to make my mother proud in school and I was pretty good at it. It started coming easy to me. Back then though in elementary school, your report card wasn't graded with letters. Well, it was but not A through F. We had three different letters to reflect how we did in school. There was either C for commendable asks for satisfactory or an eye for needs improvement. Typically, my report card was 99%. Cs. I think my only Ss were rare, I never got an NI but my Ss would be for class participation because I was so introverted. I didn't want to raise my hand and have everyone's eyes on me. So I would let my work do the talking things that I did at home no matter how easy it was basic math spelling vocabulary. Like I said earlier, though, once I found girls I was interested in then suddenly I became a class clown, and then they couldn't get me to shut up. I was never bullied in elementary school. There were definitely smart-ass kids. But it was never bad. Although me being introverted, there were days that I didn't want to go to school. I can tell a little story because the statute of limitations is gone. I had one day in second grade when I pretended to miss the bus and got to stay home. I hid behind the house next door and watched the bus go by. My mother was at home with I think it was two other kids at the time. So I think she was busy and besides, I was good in school so she was more lenient where she's like, Fine, stay home. But all this time she thought I missed the bus. Nope, I hid behind the house and watched it go. But I don't know why I was so nervous in school and introverted. It's just you know, people's personalities are different. Like I said, you had naptime I think in kindergarten, scamper song, run around school lunches, pizza, chicken nuggets, recess, where you just run around and do nothing. You had to show and tell when everyone was still young. So you could bring in whatever you wanted to show people and not get made fun of. You had gym class, which wasn't much. I remember my gym teacher was Mr. Streeter. I couldn't tell you one thing we did in those first few years of gym class, probably just run around and tire us out. But gym class did prepare you for field day. Do you remember Field Day, there'd be events that you'd compete in. I don't know if everybody had to compete in an event. But I enjoyed it. We had a relay race collecting bowling pins, I have a picture of it. At some point, as the years went on, you started to get ribbons for your participation. We had something in my school called DEAR time, drop everything and read, which was fun. You'd have 20 minutes where be silent in the class and you just read a book or at least pretend if you couldn't read yet. And eventually, it might have been third or fourth grade. They finally trust the kids to go off on field trips. I think it was fourth grade when we went to Plymouth Plantation. When you go to this place where everybody is acting like they're in colonial times, it blows a kid's mind. So the first thing they want to do is ask these people about current events, or 80s events, they're not current anymore. But asking about MTV or Nintendo or a Walkman. And just having the people who worked at Plymouth Plantation act like they had no idea what you're talking about. One major bonus as far as early years of school went is that it made you appreciate weekends and school vacations. Because when you're a kid every day is vacation. I don't know if it's different now. I know some parents tried to fill up every hour of their kid's day, so they don't have any time to just develop their own personalities. But I was able to just form my own opinions and my own likes. And you get to school and they get kind of honed a little bit those first few years the basics. But then you got to appreciate the Saturday when you could sleep in late because life was so tough at 6, 7, 8 years old. And then spring break, Christmas break summer vacation, but of course then you had to do it all over again this time of year school shopping for us back then you go to fi liens or Jordan Marsh, maybe get supplies at Kmart if you need them. Woolworth. Like I said, Go to Stride Rite and get some new shoes Damn, well better not get them dirty the first day. Meet your new teacher, and your classmates you pretty much always knew unless someone new moved into town. By the time I got to fifth grade, I knew everybody in the school. Then you go to sixth grade. And that's when another elementary school you kind of got filtered into the same building, then you've got to learn all over again. And each year they leveled it up just a little more homework.
I have lots of fond memories of elementary school, which I considered kindergarten through fifth grade. Maybe it was because I was really good in school. When we did those standardized tests. I was in the top 1% of the country, which amazed my parents. To me, I was just like, it's easy for me. This led to me ending up taking my SATs when I was in seventh grade, which is a whole other story in itself. So I was genius-level smart. And I'm not just saying that to toot my own horn I have the paperwork if you need to see it. But school is a grind. So my last two years of high school I kind of lost interest in being genius-level smart. I wanted to hang out with my friends and chase girls I liked but we can save middle school and high school memories for another episode another bonus episode. But I hope this episode brought back a lot of pleasant memories for you maybe some nightmare fuel. My elementary school days were the mid 1980s So life was a lot different 35 years ago. I'd love to hear how your school experiences were or how they differed from mine. Depending on when you grew up where you grew up. You can always shoot me a message at Christopher setterlund@gmail.com Find me all across social media, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and my homepage Christopher setterlund.com. It wouldn't be possible to do this episode about early school memories and not give a special Happy Birthday shout-out to my oldest friend Barry whom I met during those formative years. Hopefully, I gave you some flashbacks from the days at South Yarmouth Elementary and John Simpkins. And speaking of Simpkins, I'll be back next week for episode 83. A full-length episode, I'm going to share the story of the buried treasure of Mabel Simpkins which is mind-blowing. We're going to take a road trip wicked far away from me to Dennis, Massachusetts, talking about having a home-field advantage for that segment. We're gonna go way back in the day and look at some classic defunct New England convenience stores where we all hung out in the 80s and 90s. There'll be a brand new top five that are the top 5 1990s commercial product advertising mascots. All of that and more coming up next week on episode 83 of the In My Footsteps podcast. So I hope you enjoyed this month's bonus episode. Thank you all so much for tuning in. I always have a blast making these I hope you enjoyed listening to them. This has been the In My Footsteps podcast. I have been Christopher Setterlund and I will talk to you all again soon.