Jack gets over the line early again – –
I’m always fascinated by the ‘school run’ here in the morning and afternoon. So very different from my memories of going to school in Scotland.
Here the early run starts around 7.45 and continues in an orderly fashion until 8.00, when there’s a brief lull, then a mad rush between 8.05 and 8.15. The elementary school is just a block from us and the streets around it are reserved for drop off of the kids. Then from 2.30 until 3.00 the whole thing happens in reverse. I assume that the early morning run is parents who start work at 8.00 and the second one is probably stay at home Moms. Then there are the school buses as well and I imagine there will be many ‘latch key’ kids going home in them in the afternoon.
My memories are very different. Very few people had cars back then and most primary (elementary) schools were within walking distance. So my Grandad who lived with us walked me down in the morning and walked me back at the end of the school day. My older sister made her own way and I rarely saw her during the day as the school was divided into two sections – one for older kids and one for younger ones. The playground was also divided with a low wall between them. Back then all the teachers were single women and if they got married they were immediately required to resign. All the head teachers were men and they were expected to be married! Corporal punishment was how discipline was maintained and administered with a leather strap called a ‘tawse’ which were made in a nearby town and specially designed. I have distinct memories of receiving ‘six of the best’ on the palm of my hand on a number of occasions.
There was no system of ‘middle schools’ in Scotland and there still isn’t, so kids go straight from primary school to high school at age eleven – a very traumatic experience!
Despite all that I have mostly happy memories of those days – –
Wendy Welch: Books, Yarn, Cats, Opioids 
Girls were not spanked in my grade school days. Much more humiliating, in my experience, was being isolated from everybody – friend and foe/teachers alike – in the “heater room” – the room that housed the heater of the whole place. I remember my experience in the heater room as being a huuuge embarrassment – I don’t remember my crime that sent me there – and I don’t think that punishment was ever needed again to keep me in line. Just as effective, the teachers discovered, was being isolated from my friends in a corner of the room, at recess, not allowed to move from my desk for ANY reason, had to remain there without speaking even when kids came in from the playground for whatever reason. The teacher, of course, was there at her desk, eyes ever watchful for any added infraction that might be punishable by law. [the teacher’s law]. When a time suitable to the crime was reached, the criminal in the heater room was released.
My goodness that sound’s almost worse!
terrible!
Canmore school, not Jack’s Commercial School, had separate playgrounds for boys and girls. We marched up the stairs to the accompaniment of Miss Webster’s piano playing! Oldest at the top of I think 3 floors. All single lady teachers, except the Headmaster, and the ‘ qualifying’ teacher, the last class where we took our 2 Intelligence tests and the ‘11+’ exam, which then separated pupils going to Secondary or High School. No busses at Primary School but many to and from the High School! Free of charge! We also had school dinners, at midday, with a hot main course and dessert! one could opt for dinners st school or go home! Morning Assembly was held in a huge room with a quite high dais fotr the teachers, who filed in in their black graduate robes. We sat ready in our seats, in two halves down the middle, and classical music was played until the Rector and staff took their places. The Rector then read out any notices for the day, we sang a hymn, then said the Lord’s prayer. I got the belt, one aplication to the hand, only once, from the Geography teacher who gave it to the whole class: he said he had given us homework which we had not been given…