3rd Grade Grandparent's Day Speaker
By Twila Wagner
St. Paul Grandparents’ Day leads into community and history topics that are Social Studies standards in 3rd grade. Regan Carlson invited her grandmother, Lois Carlson, to share with us her third grade experiences. Mrs. Carlson attended Weir Elementary School in 1950, her teacher being Mrs. Pearl Harley. To be expected, there are many differences in today’s school. They had only one school bus so that meant half of the students waited until the other half were bussed to/from school. While waiting, they played games or watched other students while they were being tutored. Mrs. Carlson showed us her collection of children’s handkerchiefs that we definitely do not see today. They are very colorful and have cute designs of animals, flowers, etc. Their aprons were made of feed sacks that were also very colorful and festive looking. Mrs. Carlson showed us her doll that she had in third grade.
There was a big bell that started the school day and it was used for the timing of their 15-minute recess. School began for first graders. There were no special classes, the teacher taught the music and art in the classroom. Gym was their recess. If there was a discipline problem, that person was sent to the office and the principal spanked him. Mrs. Carlson recalled a couple of instances of the teacher handling the discipline. There was a boy that would not sit up straight so Ms. Harley put a yardstick down his back all day and told him to sit up straight, which he did. Another time a boy would not sit down so she took his chair away for the day. She said the girls never did get in trouble. When they had a party for the holidays, they had a drink and a cookie.
After Mrs. Carlson left, the students wrote a thank you for the presentation and told her their most impressive reactions of her presentation. They also told what they most enjoy about school today.
