Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Our Family Members Come Back to School!

Our blog is such an important part of our daily life in B4 so today we've invited our family members along to the classroom to blog with us.

The B4 students are showing their family member around our blog and teaching them how to write a great comment.
So -  for families and friends:
★★★
we would love to hear what school was like for you when you were young! 
★★★

School has changed a lot since Mrs McKenzie first started school in the mid-1960s.

She didn't ever get computers to use at school! 
It wasn't until the mid-1980s that there were even computers in the classrooms she taught in.
Mrs Mckenzie used to write with a fountain pen filled with ink from an inkwell or later, filled with a cartridge. Later she started using a biro.
Classrooms had blackboards but no whiteboards. 
Children loved being the monitor who banged the chalk-dusters on the concrete outside to clean them.

Mrs McKenzie remembers taking her lunch to school 
nearly every day, 
although a few children would go home for lunch. 
Once in a while she got to buy her lunch - fish and chips for 10 cents!

If children were naughty, the teacher was allowed to hit them with a leather strap!

How was school different for YOU?
When were you at school - was it in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s,90s or maybe in the 2000s? Was it even earlier? 
What do you think schools will be like in 5 more years? Ten more years?

(Thanks to our buddies Kathleen Morris and Kelly Jordan  and Mrs Yollis for sharing
their great family-blogging ideas.)

11 comments:

  1. Dear b4
    when I first started school, I felt shy and lonely
    but I have a lot of friends now.

    When I was in Philippines, I went to a school called Montessori school. I felt shy there but I had friends. I had fun there.

    by Ganda

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    Replies
    1. Dear Ganda
      I like your commet.What did the taecher do when you were bad?
      your pal Paige

      Delete
    2. Dear Paige
      I had not been naughty not one bit.I have been nice to my friends and they be nice to me.

      your friend Ganda

      Delete
    3. Dear paige,

      Ganda has an award of "most behaved" there cos she was never been naughty or involved in any kind of trouble that most children do. When kids are naughty, teachers there are allowed to spank kids with a bamboo stick or ask them to squat in front of the class.

      From,
      Ganda's Mum

      Delete
  2. Hi when i was at school in the 70s,we did not have computers until we got to High school.We didn't have to wear a uniform untill High school.
    We had a lunch order once a week and it was just fish"n"chips,if we were naughty we would get hit with a ruler or a strap or the duster thrown at us.
    We only had blackboards.
    We would write in pencil till we got to form one then we would write with blue pen.
    Thanks Mel Deans

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dear Mel
      We were very excite to see your comment. Thank you.

      It sounds like your school days were quite similar to mine. I first wore uniform at intermediate (Year 7 and 8) and then again at secondary school. In those days the girls had to wear a white panama hat and gingham dress in the summer and a beret and a gym tunic in the winter. I much prefer the uniforms the children wear now!
      Was your uniform similar?

      from Mrs McKenzie

      Delete
  3. Dear Mrs McKenzie

    What school did you go to when you were 7 years old, Mrs McKenzie?




    by Jonathon.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hello B4. Today I read your great stories. When I went to school, we had milk in small bottles every day. In the summer the milk became very hot and the milk was yukky! In the winter we had cocoa, which was made for the whole school. Every morning we learned our times tables. Each week it was a new one. We had a test on a Friday to make sure we new the tables well. In summer we swam two times a day. (I went to school in Canterbury) I think your classroom is a lot brighter and full of interesting things than my ones were.
    Kaeleb's Grandma.

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    Replies
    1. Dear Kaeleb's Grandma
      Thank you for your wonderful comment.
      Mrs Mckenzie remembers having school milk too! It was okay in the winter, but not very nice on the hot days of summer!

      In B4 we don't have as many tests as you used to!

      from B4

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  5. Hello b4,

    I went to school in the 90's and just like others we didn't have computers then until I got to high school. Every morning before the class starts and after the class ends in the afternoon, we always performed the flag ceremony on our school grounds. Teachers had to used blackboards and chalks so they can write their lessons, my classmates loved to clean the blackboards so they can also bang the eraser on the rock outside the classroom or on the back wall of the classroom that's why the back wall of our classroom were painted white with a chalk :D. We had heaps of books that we had to bring to school everyday then bring it back home at the end of the day and it was pretty heavy for a little girl like me. Our house then was nearby the school, so I just had to walked all by myself. We used pencil for writing because we were not allowed yet to use pen until in high school. Every morning we had a 30 minutes recess so we can have our morning snack (morning tea) and during lunch, some of the children would go home for lunch including me and those children who lived far from the school would stay in school cos they had a packed lunch. We had heaps of home works every day and a short test every day then long test every Friday. We also had this so called regional test quarterly, this one is a hard test for us cos the questions were not from our teachers but from the regional office. That's why we had to study and review everything with the aid of our teachers. When children were naughty, teachers was allowed to spank them with a bamboo stick or squat in front of the class for at least 30 minutes or get hit by a flying blackboards eraser!.

    Five or ten years from now, schools and tools in teaching will be far, far different from what we have in the present. Nowadays, our technology is evolving so fast and it just passing us by..

    thank you :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dear Ganda's mum

    It is interesting to find out what school was like for you in the Philippines. It seems lots of homework and testing was very common in schooling in many countries, and it still is in a lot of places.
    In B4 we like to keep it simple and just have some reading and some spelling practise each week.

    I agree - technology is changing so quickly, and it is hard to keep up!

    Thank you for leaving a great comment, it was good to hear from you.

    Mrs McKenzie

    ReplyDelete