You Are What You Were. Celebrate Retro Pop Culture At Retroland.
The days of summer were in their twilight. In mere weeks, it would be time to pull the jackets out of the closet, head sleepily to the bus stop and bid summer vacation a sad farewell. There was only one thing left to complete this childhood transition – engage in a bit of (groan) back to school shopping.
Continue reading...
Pure elation. Exhilaration and relief. After nine months of pent-up frustration, rigid order and pseudo-structured time-management as dictated by those who couldn’t actually “do,” the bell rings and you are FREE. What will you do with an entire summer ahead of you? Run, jump, hike, fish, play ball, go on vacation, stay up late watching monster movies with your friends, attend sleepovers, campouts, beach trips…the list seems as endless as summer on the last day of school.
Continue reading...
A good field trip could bring otherwise deadly boring classroom lessons to life, or at least provide students with an opportunity to play a little hooky. Often tied in with lesson plans, educational field trips brought us to museums, parks, nature conservatories, zoos, aquariums, the theater, even space centers and planetariums. What better ways to learn a subject than getting to see it first-hand, or at least as close up as a school budget would allow.
Continue reading...
For over 25 years, Scholastic Book Fairs have been delighting children, parents, teachers, principals and school librarians. They encourage a love of reading within a fun environment where a child can pick and choose his or her own books, indulging themselves into a love of mystery, history, scientific experiments and science fiction – and so much more. It brings the convenience of a bookstore right to the school. Let's take a look back at this traditional school activity.
Continue reading...
Going to school always involved a certain amount of monotony. You had the same schedule each day, the same boring routine. But there was one particular instance when things were shaken up a bit, when you knew that your day would be decidedly different, for better or worse. It all started when you walked into class and noticed a less familiar face sitting at the teacher’s desk. This could only mean one thing – “We have a sub today!”
Continue reading...
Almost everyone has vivid memories of their school lockers. Whether stacked in pairs or skinny and tall, or for those who went to a less populated school – wide and tall enough to place a scrawny kid inside – lockers have been a memorable part of the school experience for many a decade.
Continue reading...
While perhaps not a rite of passage, it certainly offered the right of passage. The hall pass was a permission ship, a declaration of sorts that you had the right to pass through the halls of school – unescorted and with the teacher’s blessing. In its simplest form, it was a roundtrip ticket to the bathroom and worth milking for all it was worth. It gave you a few precious moments of independence to ponder the imponderables, like “So-and-so is really cute” and “I wish the bell would ring,”
Continue reading...
You’re sitting in class, minding your own business, watching the teacher meticulously write the next algebra equation on the blackboard and feeling pretty good about yourself. That is, until you feel the sharp sting against the back of your neck. Is it an insect bite or have you been shot in the neck by a primitive Amazon warrior’s blowgun? You reach behind your head and feel wetness - but it isn’t blood. Rather it is a sample of one of your classmate’s saliva. You’ve just been pelted by a spitball (or spitwad, if you prefer.)
Continue reading...
School safety is something that we as a society have always taken pretty seriously. And today, there are dangers that we never gave a second thought to in the simpler times of our youth. There were no metal detectors or armed guards or fences reminiscent of a penitentiary. But, that’s not to say that there still weren’t dangers to prepare for and that’s why we all endured numerous emergency drills each year – to ensure that we all knew exactly what to do in the event the unthinkable happened. Let’s take a look back.
Continue reading...
Back in the day, long before there was text messaging, you had to – gasp! – actually write out notes and pass them to each other. No delete button. If you wrote it, it was out there for everyone to see: the person the note was intended for, all of his/her friends, and if you were particularly unlucky - the teacher. Let's take a look back at this childhood tradition.
Continue reading...