Hello everyone , its that time of the month when I join fellow bloggers from around the world for the monthly writing challenge – Tell Us About. The topic for this month as suggested by Penny , Frugal Fashionshopper is school days.
To be honest my school days are really so long ago that my memories are somewhat hazy but here are a few snippets from the deep recesses of my memory bank.
I might add I was educated in the Tasmanian state school system starting with primary school back in 1959. I attended a small country school in the village of Evandale. The students were from the village , the farming areas and the airport nearby(that was me). I do remember catching the bus to school , which seemed to take ages but in reality didn’t as it is only a few kilometers away.
As was rather typical of the time the education was very much based on the three R’s (reading , (w)riting and (a)rithmetic). My grade two teacher was Miss Hutton , who co-incidentally was my husbands aunt, we discovered this when we met thirteen years later.
One of the treats of the week was a walk to the local shop to buy a pie for lunch as the school didn’t run to a canteen.
At the end of grade six we moved in to town where I attended Kings Meadows High School, a fairly new school built in the early 1960’s.
Thinking back to then I was an average student but very much a square peg in a round hole. At that time our education system was very much geared to gaining skills for the workplace and students , especially girls , were given narrow learning options. Sport for girls was very much team sports , hockey , netball , tennis and athletic carnivals and swimming carnivals twice a year. I did play hockey in my first year but frankly it was not for me as my ball skills are completely lacking.
I also did cooking (quite useful) and sewing and do remember being told I was the crookedest sewer the teacher had ever taught ( this may have affected my confidence as I still don’t sew).
This may have been a state high school but we had a fairly strict dress code enforced by our headmistress , Mrs. Clayton. As this was the time of the mini pretty much everyone hitched up their skirts to make them shorter much to her disgust so from time to time girls were summoned to have their skirt length measured. I also remember myself and my friend being called to her office , always a scary proposition, as we had been spotted on our walk to school not just with our long hair out but not wearing our hats . We were threatened with expulsion until we mentioned that we were finishing in a couple of weeks so were just given a warning. My goodness things have changed this would simply not happen today.
The best part of high school for me was meeting my friend Didee , who after all these years is still one of my closet friends.
Writing this and looking back at my school days and comparing the schooling of my children and now my grandsons I am pleased to say our education is now so much more flexible and there are many different choices available .
I searched high and low for any photos of me in school uniform but drew a blank so here is me on the back of a camel taken in central Australia on a school trip ,I would have been 15 at the time.
Please join Gail at Is This Mutton to see my fellow bloggers posts .
Actually I remember two excursions to Wimbledon and being amazed at the brown bare legs of all the competitors. This was in the days of British people not going abroad for their holidays so we were evermore of pasty race than we are now!!! Being on a camel seems so exotic to me! Being a square peg in a round hole sums it up for me too.
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I did smile at your memory of those tanned legs at Wimbledon. The school trip was quite an experience as we were camping . Glad I was not the only square peg in a round hole.
It’s fascinating to read all about the different school memories of us all and how the world has changed. These are all good historical facts from ordinary people which won’t make any history books but are just as important.
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I couldn’t agree more Rosie on how different each of our school experience has been. many thanks .
It’s funny how schools have changed over the years. My sewing class (we called it home economics) was out of a book because the principal wouldn’t buy sewing machines. There wasn’t a room we could have used anyway. So, we learned about sewing out of a book. We had to do quarterly projects. I remember making a dress…luckily, my mom was a really good seamstress. My husband was able to go home for lunch, but my school was out in the country. Our lunches seemed much better then than what my students ate! Fascinating read, Jill!
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Thanks so much Marsha , it has been interesting learning about our different school experiences. Here home economics comprised both cooking and sewing , glad I didn’t have to do anything as complicated as a dress.
My sister also went to central Australia with school back then – it was obviously a thing. I think school for a lot of people is a square peg situation. I know for me it was. I also agree school seems so much more interesting these days – so much choice and so many better subjects!
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Thank you Lydia , I think you are right about the central Australian trips as my sister went before me too. For so many , both then and now , school can be such a difficult time.
Another square peg in a round hole here! In high school, we painstakingly pressed pleats into our gathered skirts summer uniforms each morning before school! Box pleats, knife pleats, and then we all hitched them up way too high over the belt! I do remember thinking that a bright red hair ribbon would look good with my dark navy winter tunic instead of the regulation school colours ribbon (which had been sourced from the local haberdashery). I also went to a public high school which was very strict uniform wise and and needless to say the fabulous red ribbon didn’t get to lunch time that day!
I didn’t fit the system at all, except for my love of my French class. I was determined to dance for a career and back in the 60’s there was nothing culturally of any kind. No singing, music, drama (except I remember reading The Merchant of Venice at our desks for English) and definitely no dance – although in primary school we did “folk dance” and I enjoyed marching to music in assembly, the closest thing I got to dance at school.
My mother instilled in me “be an individual Elizabeth, don’t follow the crowd” and I thank her for that but it was pretty tough and in many instances, lonely, at school.
Thanks for sharing, Jill,
Love,
Elizabeth.
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Glad to hear I was not the only one that the education system of the 1960’s didn’t suit. Thank goodness that has changed for the better and our grandchildren have so many more options for self expression. Your mother was very wise.
When I think back to the uniform standards for public high schools , it seems so far removed and was enforced to make us conform – no wonder we didn’t.
It may have been thousands of miles away, but your school experiences in Tasmania sound very similar to mine! I was also put off sewing for life by a cruel teacher (she held up my sewing and said the boys could have done better. I was 9). And I was also hopeless at ball games. At my equivalent of high school we also got in trouble for wearing wedge shoes, nail polish or v necked instead of crew necked jumpers!
Great reminiscences.
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Isn’t it funny how even though we are so far away and with different education systems are school experiences were so similar Hopefully today’s teachers are more aware how their negative comments impact the students confidence. Glad you too were a bit of a rebel when it came to uniform Gail.
What a great read, Jill! I loved that photo of you and your pal on a camel and fancy your John being related to one of your teachers. I hated hockey, too! xxx
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Thanks so much Vix , glad you enjoyed the post and the pic of me on the camel. I know it was quite the co-incidence , by then she had married later in life and moved interstate.
Such a lovely post, Jill! I did have a giggle at you being called the crookedest sewer your teacher had ever seen!!! Such a shame though because comments like that, when we’re kids, can affect us throughout our lives!
So wonderful that you met your lifelong friend Didee at school!
Hugs
Suzy xx
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Thank you so very much Suzy. So true teachers can have such an affect on childrens confidence. Yes those school friends are so precious.
Hi Jill, this was a great trip down memory lane! Another fun Tell Us About prompt and that camel pic is a classic.
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Thanks so much Debbie it was fun to go down the school memory lane , both good and not so much.
Wonder how many of us in the Tell Us About gang would describe ourselves as square pegs? I certainly was – and still am!! We’ve all turned out okay, even if we are a little different.
I never attended a school where uniforms were required but I remember not being allowed to wear pants. And then remember the year we could finally wear pants to school. Sounds so crazy now to think that all of the girls could only wear dresses and skirts. Can you imagine someone trying to enforce that now?
Glad you are still so close to your long time friend. I am very close to my best friend from 8th grade. We met in 6th grade but weren’t really friendly for two years. Partially because I was a square peg and she was round!!
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It seems many of us describe ourselves as square pegs and yes we turned out OK and with with an imaginative mind still intact.
It is interesting how those uniform standards have changed over those years. Are school friends are such a joy to have in our lives. It was an interesting topic and a way to share our experiences.