I taught in a country school, back in the early 60's and had 45 in my classroom.

The world was a different place back then..........

Children were taught to respect teachers back then. Teachers had the authority to reprimand students and control their classrooms. Principals backed them up when a student misbehaved, and punishment was necessary.

Unlike today, where students can and do treat teachers terribly and there is no authority. My sister is a teacher and when she took a 5th grader to the principal's office (the student was reprimanded for not doing his homework, he then cursed my sister vividly and loudly) the principal told my sister to LEARN TO BE PATIENT when dealing with her students. There was absolutely no punishment for the student, and his grade was not dropped because of the missed assignment.

I love that picture! They all look so young and cute.

So, tell us, which one is YOU?

Reminds me of my school pictures There was obedience back then and respect. We didn't know what it was just that it was shomething you should do and we did it. And there wasn't so much social engineering back then. Kids were kids and in school to learn.

In looking at that picture, I would swear it was a bunch of kids I went to grade school with. Even the teacher looks a lot like Miss Gilbertson.
I think we were all well behaved because we knew if we didn't we would get in big trouble when we got home.

We did what we were told immediately & without question! Altho' unspoken, we somehow felt misbehaving in school would bring disgrace to our family. And ohhhh, the thought of repercussion at home were dreadful.

Suzi

I almost see me in that picture! Very sweet looking chidren

Not only have we taken away authority from the teachers today but we also expect them to be social workers.

Also most of our schools where I live have children from homes where English is there second language. That is if it is spoken at all. When my parents came to the country it was their responsibility to learn English. If they got behind in their studies because they didn't have the language skills to keep up they weren't promoted until they could. Immersion worked. Even in the fifties and sixies when I went to school the kids from other countries picked up English very quickly. They had to, so they did.

Then we have mainstreaming which is a wonderful concept but has gone too far. Of course children with handicaps that are willing and able to learn should be mainstreamed as often as possible. But we now have schools being forced to mainstream almost all children no matter how severe the handicap and/or the disruption to the classroom.

We talk about other countries that have a far better academic outcome than the US. But if you take a closer look those high-achieving countries are no where near as culturally diverse as the US. Nationalism is not a dirty word in those countries as it has become here. Now teachers are expected to teach to test and teach to culture instead of teaching to learn if that makes sense.

That is me, third row, fourth from the left. The one with the dark hair, large white collar and the scowl.
Amazingly, all but 4 of these children went on to graduate with me. Two of the four moved away, and the other 2 were kept back a year. So we lived to tell about all that disscipline. Yes it definately was a different time.

And that teacher, Mrs Yavorsky, (no spring chicken in this picture) was my daughter's first grade teacher 19 years later.

When I was a kid (not as long ago as these pics) and we got in trouble from the teacher, it was assumed that the teacher was right.
The punishment we got from the teacher was nothing to what we got, when we got home.

Have you noticed that more kids are put on Ridlin (sp) as an excuse when they act up? It seems that teachers want zombies in their classes now.

That is one gorgeous, priceless picture. How did they do it? Well they didn't have disrespectful, ill mannered, brats sitting in front of them for the 6 or 7 hours a day.
And no mistake about it ,if one was out of line the parents did not come running to the school to protest the fact the teacher scolded me. We were a greater society back then.

The forty children picture reminds me of years ago when I had 42 9-12th graders in one class 8th period! Ran out of room for names in my register and there were not enough desks in the classroom, nor was the room large enough to squeeze any more in.

Goes without saying that I am happy retired from the profession!

I was fortunate I never was in a class that size. When I was in school (public school, Buffalo NY) we had maybe 25 kids in a class. The worst I remember was when I was in third grade. Our teacher taught second grade half the day and our class the other half. We were told to read while the teacher was out of the room. We behaved.

You know what's missing? The boys with their pants hanging below the crack in their butt.

Seriously, that is a great picture. I don't have any old school photos, but I found my sister's third grade class photo.

You were cute back then Margaret. As a matter of fact, from photos I've seen of you, you still are cute.

Linda

Teachers don't really want zombies. It's just that when students are misbehaving (and I don't mean just chewing gum and other minor infractions that were major a couple of decades ago), then other kids can't learn as much, and the teacher certainly can't teach as well. I could go on and on, but I'll stop and hope most of you realize this.

Ahh, You look as cute as the rest of them.
I understand the scowl, remember back then, you had to sit very still for pictures. By the time they had all 40 lined up, they were all bound to be short on smiles.

Something I noticed --- There are very few girls with bangs. I guess Mamie didn't hit the scene yet!

The first girl in the second row from the bottom looks like it could have been me at that age.

It's a fun picture!

What a great pic. The teacher sure looks proud of her brood of little ones, and heard the photographer yell, "Say CHEESE."

That was back in the day when children MINDED their teachers or suffered the consequences!

My teachers in the mid-late 70's taught two grades at one time. We probably had over 40 kids in the room. We were expected to be quiet and behave. We didn't eat junk food for lunch. Junk food was still a treat back then. We had recess before school, in the morning after our milk snack, after lunch, and after our afternoon milk snack. We had three cartons of milk a day.

My kids are in elementary school. They go straight to class when they get to school. There is one recess after lunch for 20 minutes. The only way they get a healthy lunch is if momma packs it. My kids say the milk is bad and then there are the 'juices' that I'm not sure are 100% juice. Snack is whatever momma sends, if any. Some kids don't get a snack.

What a wonderful picture! Thanks for sharing.

I agree with the others, discipline was a whole different thing in those days.

Love the picture! Now...at your reunion...can you take this picture with you and line everyone up like they were in the picture and take a picture "now" and post it back to us? That would be so much fun!

When I was in school, 30-40 per class was very normal. And I feel fortunate that I was in large classes. Teachers cared about teaching and we came out able to read, write, punctuate and construct at least a semi-coherent sentence, add, subtract, multiply and divide, and all without having to use a computer or calculator. Oh, and you'd better show your work! Unfortunately I'd lose credit because I could add two or three two-digit numbers in my head. Today it seems like, unless they had a calculator, kids would have to take off their shoes and drop their pants to count to 21!

I worked for a school district for seven years and watched the decline of education. It was disgusting. Seems to me we need to start cutting education funding. Make them do more instead of have more. Concentrate on teaching instead of babysitting. An analog clock was a teaching device in years past, but can't do that anymore. Can kids tell time unless it's digital?

A GOOD teacher is worth their weight in gold. Unfortunately, there's getting to be so few. And of course the lack of parenting further complicates things and makes for a vicious circle. I can forgive teachers being frustrated when they're not allowed to teach, or when they're expected to do things they shouldn't have to be doing. But when they're more concerned about more time off (from a six month job), than doing what they're supposed to, I start becoming annoyed.

And yes, drugging the kids because they refuse to parent. Everyone has to have an excuse these days. They're not brats, they're ADD, and so on and so on. And I'm so sick of this I'm not going to raise my kids like my parents raised me... I got (insert discipline here)...

Better stop here before the FGs throw a temper tantrum.

Maybee, what a great idea! There would be some missing...four that I know of have died. In my senior year the class had grown to about 100 students when my school and another school merged. We all garduated in the same ceremony, but we had nebver met most of the kids from the other school

I'm sure many of us attended 1-room schools, which housed grades from 1-8. Those were great years! If I got done my studies early, it was fun to listen to the other grades being taught. As we got older, we helped with the younger kids.

On a wonderful winter day, the teacher would cancel classes for the afternoon and we'd all go out and build snow forts, have snowball fights, etc. Same in the fall, we'd all go out and rake leaves. We had a ball then.

I have a picture of my 1st grade class, and there were 60!!!!! of us! 1956-1957. St. Therese Catholic School. Garfield Heights, Ohio. Sr. Mary Aloysius had TOTAL control over that many 6 year olds!

Wildchild, I so agree. My sister was just telling me yesterday how her son's class has 5 special needs students, not to mention many ESL students.

I disagree with Cynic. I do think there are many teachers worth their weight in gold. They are just trying to balance so many different things that teachers many, many years ago didn't have to experience.

Yup, I remember, we were 50 in my class in the beginning, but shrank down to 48

Moni

I agree, intherain. There are a LOT of good, caring, effective teachers out there that bust their butts everyday to give all the kids what they need. Don't know where teachers teach six months a year, but it's sure not in my district! LOL

Times have changed, as a lot of posters mentioned. A lot of kids aren't taught respect for themselves, much less anybody else. I see too many homes where the kids call all the shots and the parents "mind" them. Put a bunch of those kids in a classroom together and you've got a problem on your hands maintaining control, much less teaching the class anything.

Teaching is a wonderful, demanding profession - under the best of circumstances.

The most I ever had was one year when I taught third grade. I had 31 kids for most of the year and I registered about 40 that year. It was craaaazy!

All of that being said ---------LOVED your photograph! All the kids look so sweet and innocent. Kids do that so we don't kill'em! LOL

Simple math to get 6 months. Obviously it's a point some want to deny so no sense going into it. Just start deducting from 9 months, take off two weeks for holidays, 1-2 weeks for conventions and you're at 8 months, 1-2 weeks for vacation, then take the sick leave, personal time, etc, etc. And this doesn't take into account the shorter day to start with since they don't go 8 hours per day. The average teacher is in class about 6 months per year. This comes from the school districts themselves. I worked for a school district for seven years and know how the halls echo when the final bell rings. But again, it's something that clearly won't be acknowledged and I'm not going to perplex the FGs, so I'm not going to argue it. Either you can do math or you can't. Nor will I argue with intherain. I stand by my statement that a good teacher is worth their weight in gold but of course it's your privilege to disagree.