school

I used to believe…

When I was in first grade, my teacher had drawings of characters based on the letters of the alphabet hanging on the wall over the windows of the classroom.
The one I remember most was Munching Mouth because one day my teacher put her hand to her ear and said that Munching Mouth just said he had an idea. At the exact same time she did this, some people had passed outside the window talking. For years afterwards, I actually thought I had heard Munching Mouth speak to her.

I used to believe…

When I was at school I thought 'fire extinguishers' actually shot out flames and when a fire alarm went off they would all start shooting flames out everywhere.

I was confused for a long time about this because surely if there was a fire this would only make the problem worse?

I used to believe…

When I was little my mom used to tell me stories of when she was little and in "grade school". Then one day in 5th grade my teacher told us a story of when SHE was in "grade school". I though--OH MY GOSH, MY MOM AND HER WENT TO THE SAME SCHOOL TOGETHER! I almost raised my hand to to announce this fascinating coincidence to the class. But I was too shy. good thing

I used to believe…

When I was in preschool, I used to believe that if you just scribbled loops on paper, that was writing cursive.

I used to believe…

When I was in first grade we attended an assembly. Well this assembly in particular they were going to hand out the awards for perfect attendance etc... Well when I heard my name I went up on stage to get my trophy. Only when I got up there it wasn't even my class they were calling out the awards for it was for the fourth graders. My teacher was on the side calling me telling me that I didn't hear the last name they called on.

I used to believe…

When I was a kid I used to get really excited whenever I figured something out in school (like the three times table) and believed that I was the only one who had figured it out. Up to this point my belief was pretty harmless but I went on to believe that I had to hide my "discoveries" otherwise the teacher would take credit for them. I ended up taking a lot of remiedial class for a year.

I used to believe that teachers never went to the bathroom during school. It never occurred to me that when they said they were going to the "office," they were really going to the bathroom.

I used to believe…

When I was younger in grade school whenever my dad would go see the teachers for parent-teacher meetings I would always get nervous about what they would tell him, I thought they were out to get me. When he would come home I would go hide in my room.

I used to believe…

Like many others, I used to believe that teachers spent all their time at the school. I never saw them outside of the classroom setting.

Then, my first grade teacher invited the entire class to her house for a picnic. (It turns out she did this every year.) I was dumbfounded to learn that teachers were regular people.

I used to believe…

When I was in elementary school, there were four water fountains side by side. They were labeled "Coffee, tea, milk shake, pee". "Milkshake" had the strongest flow, so everyone wanted to drink from the third fountain. "Pee" just trickled out, but sometimes some hapless kid would drink out of it. If he did, he would be teased for the rest of the day.

(Jacob, did you happen to go to the same school as I went to: Hillside School, in Berkeley, CA? Or was it a more widespread phenomenon?)

I used to believe…

When I was in elementry school, there were 4 drinking fountains set side by side...Each fountain had a title, in this order: 1.Coffee,2.Tea,3.Soda Pop,4.Pee......If you drank from one of the fountains, you were sad to have been drinking that flavored drink..No matter how big the lines were at the fountains, we would stay away from the "Pee" titled fountain....Sometimes some of us forgot about the titles and we laughed at and teased all day long for drinking "Pee"..YUCK!

I beleive it was third grade that we progressed to cursive writing but I must have been impatient to get on with it because I turned in my first assignment in cursive on an occasion when we weren't asked to use cursive. I hadn't yet learned all the tricks of this new writing style but I was trying to show off anyway. My balloon got burst big time when the teacher pointed out that there were supposed to be spaces between each word not just between sentences. You see I had strung all the letters in my sentences together sothewordswereconnectedtoo

I used to believe…

When I was in Primary school, our teacher used to explain some things by starting a sentence with "When I was a little boy..."

Damn you Mrs Hudson, I thought that when I grew up I'd turn into a woman!!!!!!

I used to believe…

When I was 5, just starting school. I used to believe that my teacher, Mrs Branch, was actually my second mummy!!! It toke alot of explaining from my REAL mum to make me understand she was only a teacher.

I remember when we had our first fire drill in school. The teacher told us that when the alarm rings, we would have to leave the classroom in an orderly fashion and walk (not run!) into the playground. Having never heard the term "fire drill" before, I thought that we were being taken outside to see a power drill that made holes with fire rather than with a drill bit. It sounded so cool. I was sure disappointed when I found out what we were actually doing!

I wanted to learn how to read so badly that I came home from my first week in Kindergarten crying because I hadn't learned yet. After all my mother had been teling me I'd learn to read when I started school...