April 1973
That same tree. April 2022 (photo credit BFC)
Echoes
K
Miss Witmer was my kindergarten teacher. She had long blond hair that curled up a bit on the ends. Kindergarten was a big deal because I was among the first group to attend in my school district. We did ride sharing with our neighbors out the road where I met one of my life long friends, JM. My mom drove us some days and her mom the others. I remember having to learn the Pledge of Allegiance and thinking upon first hearing it that I would never possibly be able to recite all those big words from memory. We had nap time and chocolate milk breaks in kindergarten. Our room was on the second floor at the very end of one of those long corridors that American schools are famous for. The central staircase of the building looked massive to me at that age. Kindergarten was just a half-day. Snippets and photo-like memories in my brain are all that remain.
1
First grade was "real school". I had Mrs. Poff who was a grandmotherly type teacher. I don't remember anything we learned except that we had arts and crafts that were related to holidays and seasons. Once we made something out of leftover egg cartons and I thought that was so amazingly novel. I am not sure how much I needed to learn because my parents were so insistent on my reading at home that I was probably ahead of most of the other kids. At recess the swings and teeter-totters looked MASSIVE to me. The playground was blacktopped near the school building with some grass beyond which held all the "play equipment". A cornfield marked the edge of the school property. There were two playgrounds - the upper one for the small kids and then a lower one for the "big kids". The toilets were near the center of the building next to the Principal's Office. It was a big deal to ask to be excused to go to the toilet. We ate in the cafeteria and we had to bring "lunch money" (coins). It was drilled into us to have our lunch money ready to give it to the cafeteria staff. By that time the Pledge of Allegiance was old hat at least.
2
In second grade Mrs. Hollander taught me. I was getting older and starting to understand there were different classes with different teachers and that MATTERED. I was apparently lucky to have Pat Hollander as my teacher (at least according to Mom). She lived in York City and perhaps was more urban and sophisticated. She had a son my age, Alexander, and referenced him often in class. Mrs. Hollander was a gruff speaking smoker and had more the look of a woman who had waited tables in a diner her whole life than an elementary school teacher. She introduced the concept of an "exciting" classroom to me - school wasn't just about sitting there and absorbing and memorizing; it was about engaging. Was that the reason my own mother was so happy I was in her class? I met Pat Hollander again a few times throughout my life - she was a kind person.
3
Grade three was my first commanding teacher, Miss Uffelman. She was a large woman (at least to a third grader) with a beehive hairdo. In her class, students were just to sit there and learn. She was actually the first teacher I disliked - not hated, but she was not my cup of tea. I looked nostalgically back at second grade and realized Mrs. Hollander might have been onto something. Linda Uffelman once received a kit of activities to use with the students. It looked fascinating to me as she unboxed it. I couldn't wait to use whatever it was, but we never did. On that score, I feel for you Linda. Was it something that you didn't ask for, your bosses ordered anyway, and you had to use in class? I have been there - and I ignored my box too! ha!
4
Mr. Bailey was another large teacher with a commanding presence. He was our last teacher "upstairs" before we went down with the big kids in fifth and sixth grade on the first floor. Harold Bailey was old school like Linda Uffelman and we were to sit there and listen and learn. He was getting us ready for our big move - toughening us up maybe? I don't remember much about his class except that Mr. Bailey was huge compared to us and was more "scolding" than "nurturing". No doubt we needed scolding, but I also don't remember anything from his class. I DO remember he was from New Freedom, PA which was right on the border with Maryland and he told stories of life on the state border (in fourth grade it might as well have been China). There were actually farms that predated the Mason-Dixon Line that were partially in Pennsylvania and partially in Maryland. For a fourth grader, that was mind-blowing (as an adult, I immediately think about paying taxes - to whom?). He went on to marry another teacher later in life, Doris Shenenberger, who was friendly with my mother. By that time I was in my teens and I was amazed that two such "old people" would even bother to get married. Now being "old", I totally get the need for companionship.
5
Downstairs!!! The first floor was the realm of the big kids. I was so proud to be downstairs. My fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Carr, was of the Mrs. Poff model - a very sweet grandmotherly woman. My mom told me later in life she was so worried about my education when I was assigned Mrs. Carr as she was famous for basically not teaching anything. "She was combining English with Art", Mom related. Yikes! I would have been worried as a parent, too. We often begged her to bring the TV into the classroom (a novelty at that time) and she did! She turned on some PBS program and we loved it. The fifth grade was where "streaming" began. Even as a kid I understood the implications. We were already being divided into who was "smart" and who was not. There was outrage among the parents whose kids were not in the "smart" section. We kids all understood streaming and its implications, but if we brought it up, the talk was shut down immediately and dismissed. That was my first experience with figuring out a system and asking about it only to be told "that's not true". A glimpse of the real world at 11 years old and I was baffled. Fifth grade also marked our changing of classrooms for the first time - for math. I had the extremely severe Mrs. Russel. She was pre-old school (like 19th century- she could have been a Dickens character) and we were terrified of her. Her persona so overwhelmed the class that I wonder if anyone learned anything? Downstairs also meant the downstairs playground where we started to play more organized sports like dodgeball. That is where the nascent jocks started to stand out and I realized that team sports were just not my thing. Fifth grade was fun, but I had no idea I actually had fallen behind.
6
My sixth grade year was seminal. I had one of the best teachers of my life, Mrs. Goss, AND I woke up to just how important education was. I was so happy to be at the top of the food chain at our little school. I became a "bus safety" which meant I wore a few straps with a badge and stood out on the road at school bus stops to make sure the little kids exiting or entering the bus got on and off safely. It was a big deal to be safety. I received my first poor marks from Geraldine Goss. She had her work cut out after receiving us from Mrs. Carr. I was livid - I had only got A's to that point and suddenly I failed something. It really motivated me and I improved. Mrs. Goss was an amalgam of all the teachers previous - grandmotherly, engaging, but strict and commanding respect. She was doing her best to prepare us for the next year. We would be going to high school! Math was with Mrs. Long who was an incredibly boring teacher for me, but she took an extended medical leave and we had a long-term substitute whom I liked much more (her name is lost to memory). I was sad when Mrs. Long returned to math class and my mother was baffled because she liked Mrs. Long personally. The biggest event of sixth grade was a class trip that Mrs. Goss organized to Washington, DC. We had, of course, visited Gettysburg as all elementary school students did in our local area, but Washington.... wow! She arranged the whole thing and I believe we were self-funded (as per the above photo, I was class treasurer - I guess I should have known?) That trip made me realize that being a good teacher extended far beyond the walls of the classroom. Hats off to your Mrs. Goss - you were a good teacher and influenced my own teaching later in life.
Principal's Office
The Principal's Office was on the second floor by the central stairs and seemed to be the nerve center of the school. Our principal was Gerald Dore, a tall (to a kid) serious looking man with white hair and deep set eyes. He looked scary although my mother insisted he was quite the amiable guy. In those days corporal punishment had not yet been banned, so the thought of being sent to Mr. Dore's office sent chills down any kid's spine. He was rarely seen nor interacted with - he was like some authority figure that was glimpsed on occasion or appeared in photos (as above). Mr. Dore's secretary Kay Leiphart was the polar opposite. She was his receptionist/secretary and the face of the office. Everyone loved Kay as she was very warm and friendly - serving to soften the blow of any visit to Mr. Dore. As an adult I reflect back on those less complex times and wonder what Mr. Dore's biggest headaches were? I am sure elementary school principals have problems today that would make poor Gerald Dore shudder.
Cafeteria
I honestly do not remember the food, but the cooks were a group of ladies from East Prospect (the little town where my elementary school was located) and my mother always reminded me just how lucky I had been. In the days before food trucks and processed food, we mostly had a home cooked lunch every day. As a kid, food was food I guess? Apparently, the faculty table appreciated it far more than the students or at least my mom reported it that way.
Janitors
How strange to remember janitors, but I do. "Chick" Heis and Mr. Flinchbaugh were two tireless men that kept up the school from their lair in the boiler room. My memory is of them always cleaning up after us. It may sound disgusting, but little kids puke a lot. It was a huge topic of discussion, too. "Somebody kutzed" (we were perhaps some of the last to use Pennsylvania German words). Little kids are just fascinated with bodily functions for some reason. They had this amazing sawdust-type powder that absorbed all manor of vile spills and liquids on the terrazzo floors. Maybe it was just my kids memory, but I felt like 50% of their work day was cleaning up after all sorts of pre-pubescent bodily misfunctions each day. Mr. Flinchbaugh was rather quiet, but Chick was a hoot and everyone liked him a lot. I wonder how he got such an unusual nickname? When I think of stuff I forgot in life and feel disappointed, and then I can remember the janitors of my elementary school? It is ironic to say the least.
Teacher's Aids
My mother, Janet Kuhn, and Sandy Ruby were all teacher's aids. They had a space on the second floor LITERALLY in a converted broom closet. I think my Mom took the job partly to have a little shopping cash and partly to be part of the school where I attended. I honestly did not interact with Mom much because she was busy. She kept at that job long after I graduated high school and eventually moved with the kindergarten offsite when there was not enough room at Canadochly. Mom loved being an aid in kindergarten and often told stories about the kids. I think it gave a lot of meaning to her life since she never had a chance to develop herself much other than being a typical housewife of that era. Mom stayed in touch with the other aids, too. She and Janet Kuhn were friends for years after and Janet's daughter, LKG, and I were good friends in the last years of high school.
Gym Class
Mr. Schwartz was the gym teacher the whole time I was at Canadochly. I viewed him as a mean-spirited nazi who was a pathological fitness freak. As an adult, I look back on his job of teaching little kids about the importance of fitness and organized sports as well as overseeing our "Track and Field Day" and I view him less harshly. I only question if he should have been teaching children our age given his passion to get us all in shape. Maybe he was just too much for the elementary school set? I suppose from his point of view he saw American youth in decline - too much TV, too little activity (if he only knew what was coming later!!). His attempts to redress it might have been too strong for us - or we were just so pampered by that point, we thought anything "hard" was horrible. His yearly magnum opus, "Field Day", was a big event where the whole school participated. I learned early on that I was never going to be good in any of it, so I just cheered on my friends who excelled in their events and helped set up and tear down the equipment. I was never terribly excited about Field Day itself except we did get out of class and we could goof around with our friends outside. It would be easy to blame Charlie Schwartz for turning me (and others) off to sports and physical activity, and perhaps he did to a degree, but he was fighting against "sedentary America". Perhaps he was just passionate about what he believed in. As a kid, I thought he was mean and militaristic. As an adult, I see him as an "activist" who was fighting for something he saw as vital - good physical health.
Recess
Dusting off snippets of memory I remember in the early grades especially the importance of having a recess friend. Classes took recess together and every year we were with different kids. At the start of each year at recess we all nervously looked around to see who we were going to hang out with for that grade. When we joined the big kids downstairs, everyone mixed more freely together, but in the early years "recess best friend" really was a phenomenon. What is even more amazing to me was the fluidity. Whoever was my bestie last year, might not have been my bestie the next year. Some of it had to do with being physically in the same classroom and some of it, I think, just because summer vacation was like some "reset" button and we were starting the process all over again. How strange that I remember that I had "best friends" at recess - especially second, third, and fourth grades, but I can't remember who they were!
Music class
Just as we had PE class outside of our regular class routine, we also had music. Music class was basically learning to sing a few songs as a class. The school provided pianos on wheels that were moved from room to room (I can't imagine how they kept them tuned!). There was one teacher whom we all loved (can't remember her name), but she left after a few years. She came back to visit us in class once and we were all so happy to see her again. We learned traditional old American songs like "Sidewalks of New York" and "I've Been Workin' on the Railroad" as well as patriotic songs. I loved music class because I liked singing. Once or twice a year we all gathered to practice together for a special program (there was usually a holiday program at least and often something in the spring). EVERYONE participated - it was like "forced choir". I imagine that for some kids singing was the equivalent of me being forced to play an organized game or a sport. They just endured it. I loved singing as a group, but hated the performances. Suddenly the fun singing took on this serious edge and we strived for perfection rather than fun. I was once slated to sing a solo and got sick the night before (real sick with a fever). I still attribute that to nerves. Regarding children performing, parents can be horrible - I know my mother was at her low point in parenting when it came to pushing me out there to "do something". Meanwhile, the performances must have been akin to the finale of the musical Music Man, where we kids all were doing our best, it was awful, and our parents were just so damn proud.
Canadochly - I drove by a few years ago and was amazed at how very small the building actually was. I have almost all good memories of the place, if patchy, and I appreciate having attended an elementary school in a small town on the edge of a corn field. Life really was so much more innocent then.
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