When I was a little girl we rushed home from school every day to change from our school clothes into play clothes. Homework was unheard of so we were free for a few hours to do as we pleased.
Some days I went back to school to visit my teacher. Unlike today the teacher was not out the door before the students. Miss Hayhurst always welcomed me. Sometimes we would talk and other times I would read or play with the toys in her room. I was not always the only one either. School was a pleasant place.
There were days we played outside. Tag and hide and seek were fun games. If there were enough of us we could play baseball. Playing cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians were favorites. Sometimes just watching a spider build its web kept us interested for a long time. The only limits we had then were our imaginations.
I advocate imagination. It is a sign of intelligence. In your imagination nothing is impossible. Imagination has brought us our famous inventions and medical innovations.
Westerns were the programs on television after school. We lived in a little town. Only one television station was available to us. The nearby larger town made the schedule of programs by choosing from the three networks.
We watched The Cisco Kid, Hopalong Cassidy, and Roy Rogers were on every day. I also liked Mickey Mouse Club which we could watch at my grandparents' farm. They had a different television station feed.
Recently we were able to watch Roy Rogers shows on a TV channel that shows old programs. I am enthralled watching Roy Rogers when he is riding his horse Trigger. He is so smooth. You cannot tell where horse stops and rider begins.
We did not have programs to keep us busy after school. We made our own. Today's children are deprived.
They miss out on being with the other children to play with and make friends, thanks to Covid.
ReplyDeleteThat is true. I stand reminded.
DeletePlaying outside at a young age and using your imagination was what we did. I am thankful that my own kids had that in the 80’s also. Having adventures and riding our bikes everywhere was a wonderful way to grow up.
ReplyDeleteIt was glorious.
DeleteYou are right, Emma, in stating that imagination is the key.
ReplyDeleteIt is so much fun to play an imaginary game with a child. They take twists and turns I would not have thought of.
DeleteI love to hear about that time, and your experiences, Emma. You had to do no homework? How long were the normal daily stay at school - did you do your homework at school?
ReplyDeleteAnd yes: I think it very necessary that children are allowed to create their own agenda and don't have to live on the agenda of their parents (music lesson, Chinese lesson, fitness lesson...)
I learned to read and write in kindergarten. We also did simple math; adding and subtracting. First grade added science and history. That was when we began doing multiplication and division. This was not an advanced school of some sort. It was the public school. It was a small school with three grades to a room. While the teacher was teaching one of the other grades we worked our assignments. We had two recesses each day in which we either went outside to play or played in the gymnasium. Music lessons were usually conducted by the teacher but at times a music teacher came in to teach us more. One school even had nap time for the room that had kindergarten, first, and second grades. Each child took a throw rug to place on the floor and we learned to power nap. We went for a full day to school. We had the option of eating lunch at school or going home for lunch. We all learned. Children's minds are ready to learn if the lessons are there. At the same time the free time we had after school was part of our educations.
DeleteI recently learned that Roy's family closed his museum.
ReplyDeleteMost of the Westerns you mentioned only came on Saturday morning in my area, but I watched Walter Lantz cartoons on weekdays.
We watched cartoons on Saturday mornings. I guess we were all at the mercy of our station's programming.
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