Those days and these days….
Posted by spillay on June 13, 2008
I always count myself as lucky when I have a chat with Margaret. Walking away after our chats, I am usually filled with a sense of awe.
Margaret is the grandmother of one of the little boys in V’s class. She is one of the many grandparents that I often see in the school grounds, dropping off or picking up their grand-kids from school. What a lovely person she is, and every time I have have a chat with her, I am usually fortunate to get a glimpse of what life was like many years ago. In this regard, she reminds me so much of my own father who loves to reminisce about the old days. (I cannot wait for his visit this September - this time I am going to take notes,.. :) )
This morning, Margaret and I spoke about how different school life was then and now. We explored how different learning arithmetic was in days where calculators could not be found in classrooms and where elocution played an important part in reading. We also discussed how shocking it is to find students in higher grades (these days) having difficulty in reading and about teachers who cannot spell.
As usual, as I walked away from Margaret after our little chat, I spared a thought on how fast life changes, and how strange it is that we don’t even notice this on normal days. Today, if you are lucky enough to be in contact with someone from a prior generation,… take a few minutes and ask them about how something was in those days. You will probably walk away amazed! 
June 13, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Well said Spillay!
While it’s true that the learning methods have changed, the content has changed too. I think kids of today also have the pressure to perform, compete, and be good at multitude of things. Having two to three activities apart from school appear to be the norm these days. I think each generation comes with it’s own baggage of pluses and minuses!
June 14, 2008 at 3:12 am
This is such a good topic. I feel we can greatly learn from our elders and I love talking to people who are older than I am. My grandpa had the best stories and I learned a lot from him just by listening. Boy, am I ever glad I did.
I feel learning is changing for the worst part and I feel two things weigh into it. #1 are the sports. Kids get taken into schools with “scholarships” to one sport or anther and they are sailed through because they are the “star” on the team. Of course this is in high school and older. #2 is I feel parents have to much to say about things. When I was in school I had to pull my own weight and if I was having trouble with something, I had to work on it but I think now, if a teacher says anything to a parent, the parent gets mad and god forbid the teacher even mention holding the child back. I worked in a public school system for 15 years and the biggest reason I quit was because of the parents. You could have the naughtiest child but couldn’t discipline him/her because the parent would march into school and demand to know what happened and that her dear child did nothing wrong so administrators wanted nothing to do with that headache so to much is overlooked.
June 16, 2008 at 2:40 pm
hey there! you are right about daddy and his wonderful stories of his younger days. so fascinating! we must find a way to capture them somehow. they’re definite gems! good luck with the note-taking!
June 18, 2008 at 9:23 am
@ Suman: You are right about all the extra curriculur activities. I actually see this as a blessing as I find that my children now have the opportunity to try so many new things, that I just didn’t have the option of when I was younger. Of course, we never force them on any one thing…. so far, this works briliantly at out home
@ Joy: Re parents having too much to say - I AGREE WITH YOU 100%!! School life is so political these days. A mother of my son’s classmate actually had another mum come knocking on her door to complain…. all because of a little accident that happened between the two boys at school!! Ridiculous!
@ Dinesh: Will definitely love to document all those stories. I wonder if Daddy and Mummy wouldn’t mind going through some of their old photos (from that middle drawer) and bring a few that they can talk about. I’ll scan the photos and type out the stories when they are here…..