In comp.mobile.android, on Thu, 19 Sep 2019 15:48:37 -0400, Ralph Mowery
wrote:

In article , lid says...
At what age in US schools do they make the transition from having the same
teacher for all subjects to have different teachers for different subjects.
I think by age 9 and certainly by age 11 I had one teacher for English,
another for Math(s), another for French etc - this was in the UK.




Around here in North Carolina you usually start the 1 st grade around 6
years old. There is some pre school that start sooner. The 7th grade
is where it usually starts one teacher per subject. That would usually
put you about 13 or 14 years old.

Yes, except 7th grade was 11 or 12. Even you say age 6 for 1st grade
and add 6 to get to grade 7 and that's 12.

There are usually 3 school seperations. Grades 1-7, grades 7&8 or maybe
7,8,9. Then 9-12 or 10-12. The 9 th grade has been bounced around a
few times.

Yes, in both Penn. and Indiana the 9th grade was in the junior high
school building, but it was still part of high school. Administered
like the high school and 9th grade grades were part of one's hs record.

My home town was pop. 50,000 but now 22,000. ;-( My elementary school
closed, the JHS that was 7-9 is now grades 1 to 8, so that 9th graders
can go fill the empty class rooms in the highschooo, and I don't know
what else has changed. My old house still looks nice now. Later owner
put in AC, remodeled garage, probably fixed up basement, and the oak
tree is so big people can't see out the second story windows.

On Friday, September 20, 2019 at 5:26:41 AM UTC-4, NY wrote:
"Ralph Mowery" wrote in message
k.net...
In article , lid says...
At what age in US schools do they make the transition from having the
same
teacher for all subjects to have different teachers for different
subjects.
I think by age 9 and certainly by age 11 I had one teacher for English,
another for Math(s), another for French etc - this was in the UK.

Around here in North Carolina you usually start the 1 st grade around 6
years old. There is some pre school that start sooner. The 7th grade
is where it usually starts one teacher per subject. That would usually
put you about 13 or 14 years old.

Ah, so the change from one teacher for everything to one teacher per subject
happens quite a lot later in (some) US schools than in the UK. I hadn't
realised that.

I think Ralph's arithmetic is off. I was 12 when I started 7th grade and
began having a different teacher for every subject.

Cindy Hamilton

In article , NY wrote:

Around here in North Carolina you usually start the 1 st grade around 6
years old. There is some pre school that start sooner. The 7th grade
is where it usually starts one teacher per subject. That would usually
put you about 13 or 14 years old.

Ah, so the change from one teacher for everything to one teacher per subject
happens quite a lot later in (some) US schools than in the UK. I hadn't
realised that.

7th grade is ~12 years old, not 13-14, and the change is often 6th
grade, so ~11.

The separation of schools in the UK happens at around 11-12 (it varies
slightly from one county to another)

same in usa

On 9/20/2019 6:36 AM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On Friday, September 20, 2019 at 5:26:41 AM UTC-4, NY wrote:
"Ralph Mowery" wrote in message
k.net...
In article , lid says...
At what age in US schools do they make the transition from having the
same
teacher for all subjects to have different teachers for different
subjects.
I think by age 9 and certainly by age 11 I had one teacher for English,
another for Math(s), another for French etc - this was in the UK.
Around here in North Carolina you usually start the 1 st grade around 6
years old. There is some pre school that start sooner. The 7th grade
is where it usually starts one teacher per subject. That would usually
put you about 13 or 14 years old.
Ah, so the change from one teacher for everything to one teacher per subject
happens quite a lot later in (some) US schools than in the UK. I hadn't
realised that.
I think Ralph's arithmetic is off. I was 12 when I started 7th grade and
began having a different teacher for every subject.

Cindy Hamilton


How old were you when you started getting participation trophies?

On 20/9/19 8:36 pm, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On Friday, September 20, 2019 at 5:26:41 AM UTC-4, NY wrote:
"Ralph Mowery" wrote in message
k.net...
In article , lid says...
At what age in US schools do they make the transition from having the
same
teacher for all subjects to have different teachers for different
subjects.
I think by age 9 and certainly by age 11 I had one teacher for English,
another for Math(s), another for French etc - this was in the UK.

Around here in North Carolina you usually start the 1 st grade around 6
years old. There is some pre school that start sooner. The 7th grade
is where it usually starts one teacher per subject. That would usually
put you about 13 or 14 years old.

Ah, so the change from one teacher for everything to one teacher per subject
happens quite a lot later in (some) US schools than in the UK. I hadn't
realised that.

I think Ralph's arithmetic is off. I was 12 when I started 7th grade and
began having a different teacher for every subject.

Cindy Hamilton

I was 11 when I entered 7th grade but turned 12 midway through the year.

--

Xeno


Nothing astonishes Noddy so much as common sense and plain dealing.
(with apologies to Ralph Waldo Emerson)

On 09/20/2019 04:14 AM, micky wrote:
I did have some kind of art class in the 8th grade but now I can't
figure out how that would have fit into the schedule. I remember they
lost the only decent thing I ever did, a box for Jello.

I remember my 8th grade art class. One project was carving linoleum
tiles to do rudimentary block printing. Today half the boys in the class
would be behind bars. Third Reich motifs were very popular.

On 9/20/2019 6:14 AM, micky wrote:


I think in both Pennsylvania and Indiana, for grades 1 to 6 we just had
one teacher for all subjects (except maybe an hour a week we had music
with a music teacher, and the same with art with an art teacher, in
Penn. In Indiana for the 2nd half of the 6th grade, we didn't have art
or music at all, even though it was a suburban n'hood outside a big city
that my mother chose largely for its schools.


I went to Philadelphia Catholic schools. Grade 1 to 8 was elementary
school and one teacher per classroom for all subjects.

High school, 9 to 12 you changed classes every period to a different
teacher.

Public school system was similar back then, not sure now.

In article ,
says...

I remember my 8th grade art class. One project was carving linoleum
tiles to do rudimentary block printing. Today half the boys in the class
would be behind bars. Third Reich motifs were very popular.




Things sure have changed. In the 7th grade we were required to bring a
pocket knife to school for the 'arts & crafts' class. In the 6 th grade
about every other boy had a knife in their pocket. Now even a butter
knife will get you expelled.


---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
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In article ,
lid says...
Around here in North Carolina you usually start the 1 st grade around 6
years old. There is some pre school that start sooner. The 7th grade
is where it usually starts one teacher per subject. That would usually
put you about 13 or 14 years old.

Ah, so the change from one teacher for everything to one teacher per subject
happens quite a lot later in (some) US schools than in the UK. I hadn't
realised that.

7th grade is ~12 years old, not 13-14, and the change is often 6th
grade, so ~11.




I guess that my math may be off a year or so. However I think I was
thinking of how old I was at the end of the year. Finished the 12 grade
(end of school before college or entering the work force) when I was
18. So that ment I was 13 at the end of the 7 th grade or 12 when I
started.

Birthday is in April. School usually started about the 1st week of
September. Now it starts about the middle of August or maybe sooner.
The September starting in North Carolina was for several reasons.
People working on or having family farms and no air condition.

I don't know how it is now, but 50 years ago the high school had 2 main
devisions. One for those that plan on going to college and one for
those that did not . The college prep course had the higher math like
algebra and geometry, where the other courses just had what was called
general math. I assume that many other courses were similar.







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https://www.avast.com/antivirus

On Friday, September 20, 2019 at 8:13:25 AM UTC-4, Bod F wrote:
On 9/20/2019 6:36 AM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On Friday, September 20, 2019 at 5:26:41 AM UTC-4, NY wrote:
"Ralph Mowery" wrote in message
k.net...
In article , lid says...
At what age in US schools do they make the transition from having the
same
teacher for all subjects to have different teachers for different
subjects.
I think by age 9 and certainly by age 11 I had one teacher for English,
another for Math(s), another for French etc - this was in the UK.
Around here in North Carolina you usually start the 1 st grade around 6
years old. There is some pre school that start sooner. The 7th grade
is where it usually starts one teacher per subject. That would usually
put you about 13 or 14 years old.
Ah, so the change from one teacher for everything to one teacher per subject
happens quite a lot later in (some) US schools than in the UK. I hadn't
realised that.
I think Ralph's arithmetic is off. I was 12 when I started 7th grade and
began having a different teacher for every subject.

Cindy Hamilton


How old were you when you started getting participation trophies?

I never did. I grew up when you actually had to work to get stuff.
My mother might still have my MSBOA medals.

Cindy Hamilton

On Fri, 20 Sep 2019 08:13:19 -0400, Bod F wrote:

How old were you when you started getting participation trophies?

30

"nospam" wrote in message
...
In article , NY wrote:

Around here in North Carolina you usually start the 1 st grade around 6
years old. There is some pre school that start sooner. The 7th grade
is where it usually starts one teacher per subject. That would usually
put you about 13 or 14 years old.

Ah, so the change from one teacher for everything to one teacher per
subject
happens quite a lot later in (some) US schools than in the UK. I hadn't
realised that.

7th grade is ~12 years old, not 13-14, and the change is often 6th
grade, so ~11.

The separation of schools in the UK happens at around 11-12 (it varies
slightly from one county to another)

same in usa

When I started school in the late 60s when I was 5, I started in the summer
term (ie after the Easter holiday) because my birthday is in March, so the
summer term was the first one when I was 5 years old; slightly older
children with birthdays between July and March started in the previous
autumn term (after the long summer holiday) because they were already 5 by
the time that term started. The school did not have enough classrooms to
accommodate the Easter intake, so lessons were held in one corner of the
school hall / dining room: the rest of the children could not have PE
lessons in the summer (maybe we did sport outside on the playing field)
because it would disrupt "The Class in the Hall" as it was described.

I'm not sure how typical my school was, but it was divided into two
sections: an Infant School with a headmistress, for children aged 5 and 6
(two school years); and a Junior School, with a headmaster, for children
aged 7, 8, 9, 10 (four years). The final year of the Junior School took the
11-plus exam at the end of their last year when they would all/most have had
their 11th birthday. I wonder when the exact cutoff date was to determine
which children were the youngest in one school year and which would be the
oldest in the school year below.

In my case, the two schools were joined together in a back-to-back layout,
with their respective school halls sharing a common wall. Both halls had a
door into the kitchen. I remember when I was in the infant school I'd
occasionally see the school secretary come into the hall and disappear into
the kitchen, and it puzzled me where she went. It was only when I got into
the Junior School and saw the same woman doing the same thing that it dawned
on me:

- there was one kitchen that was common to both schools (not two separate
ones, as I previously thought)

- the secretary worked in both schools and used the route through the
kitchen as a means of getting from one school to the other

I felt a bit of an idiot for not realising that before ;-)

On 9/20/2019 10:54 AM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On Friday, September 20, 2019 at 8:13:25 AM UTC-4, Bod F wrote:
On 9/20/2019 6:36 AM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On Friday, September 20, 2019 at 5:26:41 AM UTC-4, NY wrote:
"Ralph Mowery" wrote in message
k.net...
In article , lid says...
At what age in US schools do they make the transition from having the
same
teacher for all subjects to have different teachers for different
subjects.
I think by age 9 and certainly by age 11 I had one teacher for English,
another for Math(s), another for French etc - this was in the UK.
Around here in North Carolina you usually start the 1 st grade around 6
years old. There is some pre school that start sooner. The 7th grade
is where it usually starts one teacher per subject. That would usually
put you about 13 or 14 years old.
Ah, so the change from one teacher for everything to one teacher per subject
happens quite a lot later in (some) US schools than in the UK. I hadn't
realised that.
I think Ralph's arithmetic is off. I was 12 when I started 7th grade and
began having a different teacher for every subject.

Cindy Hamilton

How old were you when you started getting participation trophies?
I never did. I grew up when you actually had to work to get stuff.
My mother might still have my MSBOA medals.

Cindy Hamilton

So, you are clearly accomplished at tooting your own horn.Â* ;-)

--
Get off my lawn!

On Friday, September 20, 2019 at 2:03:40 PM UTC-4, Grumpy Old White Guy wrote:
On 9/20/2019 10:54 AM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On Friday, September 20, 2019 at 8:13:25 AM UTC-4, Bod F wrote:
On 9/20/2019 6:36 AM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On Friday, September 20, 2019 at 5:26:41 AM UTC-4, NY wrote:
"Ralph Mowery" wrote in message
k.net...
In article , lid says...
At what age in US schools do they make the transition from having the
same
teacher for all subjects to have different teachers for different
subjects.
I think by age 9 and certainly by age 11 I had one teacher for English,
another for Math(s), another for French etc - this was in the UK.
Around here in North Carolina you usually start the 1 st grade around 6
years old. There is some pre school that start sooner. The 7th grade
is where it usually starts one teacher per subject. That would usually
put you about 13 or 14 years old.
Ah, so the change from one teacher for everything to one teacher per subject
happens quite a lot later in (some) US schools than in the UK. I hadn't
realised that.
I think Ralph's arithmetic is off. I was 12 when I started 7th grade and
began having a different teacher for every subject.

Cindy Hamilton

How old were you when you started getting participation trophies?
I never did. I grew up when you actually had to work to get stuff.
My mother might still have my MSBOA medals.

Cindy Hamilton

So, you are clearly accomplished at tooting your own horn.Â* ;-)

I was being somewhat ironic. My achievements with the Michigan State
Band and Orchestra Association were exceedingly modest, and I received
mostly red (rather than blue) ribbons commensurate with my meager musical
talent.

Cindy Hamilton

On 09/20/2019 08:19 AM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
Things sure have changed. In the 7th grade we were required to bring a
pocket knife to school for the 'arts & crafts' class. In the 6 th grade
about every other boy had a knife in their pocket. Now even a butter
knife will get you expelled.

http://www.usscouts.org/advance/Cubs...ttlingchip.asp

I don't remember any fancy patch back in the day, just the wallet card.
Bear Cub Scouts are 9 or in the 3rd grade. Once you had your Whittlin'
Chip the next stop was to the store to buy your Cub Scout Knife;

https://www.scoutshop.org/cub-scout-...de-615775.html

https://boyslife.org/outdoors/ask-th...y/16534/16534/

I really like the comment

"I am eight I have a pocket nife I am good with it but you still should
watch the kid to see if her or she talks about killing and stuff"

Kid isn't going to get a grammar or spelling merit badge anytime soon.

On 09/20/2019 08:32 AM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
I don't know how it is now, but 50 years ago the high school had 2 main
devisions. One for those that plan on going to college and one for
those that did not . The college prep course had the higher math like
algebra and geometry, where the other courses just had what was called
general math. I assume that many other courses were similar.

Mine had college entrance kids and the business/shop kids. For college
entrance you took 2 years of Latin, 2 years of either German or French,
and more STEM subjects. The business kids took Spanish and typing.

All in all Spanish and typing would have been a lot handier in my life...

On 09/20/2019 08:54 AM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
I never did. I grew up when you actually had to work to get stuff.
My mother might still have my MSBOA medals.


Band medals? All I ever got was the Gertrude Markey Prize in biology,
which was 50 1964 bucks. A girl who went on to become a surgeon really,
really wanted the prize but I snatched it. That did not improve my
chances of dating her at all...

On 09/20/2019 12:11 PM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
I was being somewhat ironic. My achievements with the Michigan State
Band and Orchestra Association were exceedingly modest, and I received
mostly red (rather than blue) ribbons commensurate with my meager musical
talent.

Did you get to play 'Sleigh Ride' at the Christmas assembly? Being a
blue ribbon whip cracker would be something to aspire to.

My early musical ambitions hit a snag. I said 'cornet', she heard
'clarinet' so I spent a year chewing on reeds before switching to a
flute. I still have a silver flute but I mostly play an wooden Irish
flute. I can handle six holes without all those damn levers and stuff
and the keys of D and G are good enough.

On Fri, 20 Sep 2019 10:32:26 -0400, Ralph Mowery
wrote:

In article ,
says...
Around here in North Carolina you usually start the 1 st grade around 6
years old. There is some pre school that start sooner. The 7th grade
is where it usually starts one teacher per subject. That would usually
put you about 13 or 14 years old.

Ah, so the change from one teacher for everything to one teacher per subject
happens quite a lot later in (some) US schools than in the UK. I hadn't
realised that.

7th grade is ~12 years old, not 13-14, and the change is often 6th
grade, so ~11.




I guess that my math may be off a year or so. However I think I was
thinking of how old I was at the end of the year. Finished the 12 grade
(end of school before college or entering the work force) when I was
18. So that ment I was 13 at the end of the 7 th grade or 12 when I
started.

I wrote my final grade 12 exam on my 17th birthday - - -

On Fri, 20 Sep 2019 10:14:35 +0100, "NY" wrote:

"Ralph Mowery" wrote in message
nk.net...
In article , lid says...
At what age in US schools do they make the transition from having the
same
teacher for all subjects to have different teachers for different
subjects.
I think by age 9 and certainly by age 11 I had one teacher for English,
another for Math(s), another for French etc - this was in the UK.

Around here in North Carolina you usually start the 1 st grade around 6
years old. There is some pre school that start sooner. The 7th grade
is where it usually starts one teacher per subject. That would usually
put you about 13 or 14 years old.

Ah, so the change from one teacher for everything to one teacher per subject
happens quite a lot later in (some) US schools than in the UK. I hadn't
realised that.

When my 2 girls were in school ( 36 and 37 now) in French Immersion
they had several teachers. Some subjects were in French, and some in
English - plus music - so AT LEAST 3 teachers - and that was grades 1
to 6.
Those taking "core french" had an english teacher and a french
teacher - in the same classroom. The french teacher went from room to
room teaching French to different classes.

"rbowman" wrote in message
...
On 09/20/2019 08:32 AM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
I don't know how it is now, but 50 years ago the high school had 2 main
devisions. One for those that plan on going to college and one for
those that did not . The college prep course had the higher math like
algebra and geometry, where the other courses just had what was called
general math. I assume that many other courses were similar.

Mine had college entrance kids and the business/shop kids. For college
entrance you took 2 years of Latin, 2 years of either German or French,
and more STEM subjects. The business kids took Spanish and typing.

All in all Spanish and typing would have been a lot handier in my life...

Yes, it is frustrating that you get "forced" into doing certain combinations
of subjects because you are deemed to be more or less clever.

At my school there were two classes in each year. The clever children (I was
supposedly one of those!) had to do Latin and German; the less clever ones
did Biology and Ancient History.

I wanted to do Biology and German, but that combination was "not allowed"; I
pleaded my case that these were the subjects that were probably more useful
to me, and lack of knowledge of Biology would preclude me from any career
that needed it. The headmaster said I presented my case very convincingly to
him - but not convincingly enough to make an exception to the rule.

I found Latin to be an exceptionally difficult language - mainly because I
could never work out which words in a sentence were the nouns, the
adjectives, the adverbs and the verbs. French and German were much easier to
learn. I think the reason is that both these have "little words" (articles
like "a" and "the", pronouns like "he", and a reasonably logical word order
in which adjectives and adverbs usually go next to the noun or verb that
they are qualifying, and the article and pronoun tend to say "the next word
is a noun or a verb respectively". The capital letter on German nouns is a
big giveaway too! Prepositions ("to", "from") are distinct words.

But Latin has none of those. Everything is communicated in word endings
alone, and you need to remember a lot of permutations, some of which are
reused between different parts of speech. That "Romani eunt domus" speech
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdqXT9k-050 in "Life of Brian" got it
absolutely right. I hadn't realised how much with a foreign language I
depend on the "little words" as a sort of crutch. Word order seems to make a
*virtue* out of putting the adjective as far away from its noun as possible,
ideally next to another unrelated noun (the dreaded "chi-rhoic" construction
that was favoured in Latin poetry - it was seen as "clever" and "educated"
and "elegant").


So when I left that school (my dad changed jobs so we moved to another part
of the country) I had to continue with Latin instead of Biology. The new
school had no hangup about me doing Biology - Latin and Biology were
timetabled at the same time, as true alternatives. But I'd missed too many
years of grounding to be able to pick it up in the fourth form - ie only one
school year before I'd have taken the O level exam in it. So I was stuck
with Latin.

Latin would be very useful if it was taught as a derivation of English
words - "Latin for genealogists", "Latin for historians reading old
documents" etc. But Latin as a grammatical language is dire.


I'd like to have had the "choice" as to whether or not I did Biology at A
level, and the choice as to whether I studied a subject at university that
needed knowledge of it. I may well have chosen not to - but a choice would
have been nice ;-)

On Friday, September 20, 2019 at 9:39:07 PM UTC-4, rbowman wrote:
On 09/20/2019 08:54 AM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
I never did. I grew up when you actually had to work to get stuff.
My mother might still have my MSBOA medals.


Band medals?

Yep. Annual solo and small ensemble competitions.

Cindy Hamilton

On Friday, September 20, 2019 at 9:47:56 PM UTC-4, rbowman wrote:
On 09/20/2019 12:11 PM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
I was being somewhat ironic. My achievements with the Michigan State
Band and Orchestra Association were exceedingly modest, and I received
mostly red (rather than blue) ribbons commensurate with my meager musical
talent.

Did you get to play 'Sleigh Ride' at the Christmas assembly? Being a
blue ribbon whip cracker would be something to aspire to.

Yes, we played Sleigh Ride, but IIRC one of the drummers used a
slapstick for that effect. There was considerable envy among
the trumpet players for the guy who got to play the "neigh" at
the end.

Because it was the Dark Ages, we also played actual Christmas carols
(and sang them when I was in the chorus).

My early musical ambitions hit a snag. I said 'cornet', she heard
'clarinet' so I spent a year chewing on reeds before switching to a
flute. I still have a silver flute but I mostly play an wooden Irish
flute. I can handle six holes without all those damn levers and stuff
and the keys of D and G are good enough.

Coincidentally, I played the flute, so I've got you beat by 11.

Cindy Hamilton

On 09/20/2019 05:36 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 09/20/2019 08:32 AM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
I don't know how it is now, but 50 years ago the high school had 2 main
devisions. One for those that plan on going to college and one for
those that did not . The college prep course had the higher math like
algebra and geometry, where the other courses just had what was called
general math. I assume that many other courses were similar.

Mine had college entrance kids and the business/shop kids. For college
entrance you took 2 years of Latin, 2 years of either German or French,
and more STEM subjects. The business kids took Spanish and typing.

All in all Spanish and typing would have been a lot handier in my life...

Heh. I took Latin, French, Spanish, typing and shorthand in addition to
algebra and geometry (both of which I sucked at). I agree about Spanish
and typing, although French taught me almost everything I know about
formal grammar; Latin provided the rest.

--
Cheers, Bev
"...so she told me it was either her or the ham radio, over."

On 09/21/2019 03:30 AM, NY wrote:
Latin would be very useful if it was taught as a derivation of English
words - "Latin for genealogists", "Latin for historians reading old
documents" etc. But Latin as a grammatical language is dire.


Latin is a decent background for Spanish. Spanish, at least the Mexican
version, plays fast and loose with those 'little words' to. Personal
pronouns are a lot of work.

The problem for those taking Spanish was they were taught Castilian
Spanish which isn't what is spoken on the street. Some of the French
kids had a similar problem. Northern NY and the other New England states
have a significant number of people of French Canadien ancestry. Because
of the British invasion of New France, Quebec French sort of went its
own way in the 18th century. The teachers learned Parisian French in
college and that is what they taught.

On 09/21/2019 09:37 AM, The Real Bev wrote:
On 09/20/2019 05:36 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 09/20/2019 08:32 AM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
I don't know how it is now, but 50 years ago the high school had 2 main
devisions. One for those that plan on going to college and one for
those that did not . The college prep course had the higher math like
algebra and geometry, where the other courses just had what was called
general math. I assume that many other courses were similar.

Mine had college entrance kids and the business/shop kids. For college
entrance you took 2 years of Latin, 2 years of either German or French,
and more STEM subjects. The business kids took Spanish and typing.

All in all Spanish and typing would have been a lot handier in my life...

Heh. I took Latin, French, Spanish, typing and shorthand in addition to
algebra and geometry (both of which I sucked at). I agree about Spanish
and typing, although French taught me almost everything I know about
formal grammar; Latin provided the rest.


French has always left me puzzled. I prefer languages where the
pronunciation is a bit closer to the written word. In one branch of my
family the adults would switch to French when they didn't want the kids
to know what they were talking about.

On 09/21/2019 04:11 AM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
Because it was the Dark Ages, we also played actual Christmas carols
(and sang them when I was in the chorus).

We did Christmas carols too. If you didn't like them you could stuff
your fingers in your ears.

December was always fun. I was in 'enriched curriculum' classes so many
of the students and some of the teachers were Jewish. Chanukah floats
around but it was usually good for a lot of missing faces for a week in
early December. Then there was the Christmas vacation. You might think
it would be back to normal when everyone got back after New Years but
then the Russian and Ukrainian kids did Russian Christmas. This year
Chanukah is on the late end of the scale, December 30, so no joy there.

It was good training for later life. It's been my experience that
despite all the schedules and implementation roadmaps nothing ever
happens in December.

On 09/20/2019 08:51 PM, Clare Snyder wrote:
When my 2 girls were in school ( 36 and 37 now) in French Immersion
they had several teachers. Some subjects were in French, and some in
English - plus music - so AT LEAST 3 teachers - and that was grades 1
to 6.
Those taking "core french" had an english teacher and a french
teacher - in the same classroom. The french teacher went from room to
room teaching French to different classes.

Quebec or Parisian French? It was amusing in my high school when the
teachers tried to teach their version of French to kids who were
immersed in their version of French at home.

Hard to imagine today but how to speak Latin was also a hot topic
between the public school and Catholic school kids. Who said Latin is a
dead language?

On 09/21/2019 07:55 AM, Bud Frede wrote:
I read a lot of books when I was young that I didn't fully understand at
the time. It was only when I re-read them later that I understood some
things. Of course, that's still true today. Sometimes I have to go back
and re-read something to get the most out of it. :-)

I was about 11 when I saw 'Home From the Hill' with Robert Mitchum. I
thought it was a cool movie about hunting and stuff. I rewatched it a
few years ago and had a different outlook. I still liked the movie.

Reading did expand my vocabulary. I read 'The Foxes of Harrow' that was
laying around the house and enjoyed it greatly. That did lead to some
questions at school concerning how a 7th grade kid came to know about
quadroons and octoroons.

On Sat, 21 Sep 2019 10:30:13 +0100, "NY" wrote:

"rbowman" wrote in message
...
On 09/20/2019 08:32 AM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
I don't know how it is now, but 50 years ago the high school had 2 main
devisions. One for those that plan on going to college and one for
those that did not . The college prep course had the higher math like
algebra and geometry, where the other courses just had what was called
general math. I assume that many other courses were similar.

Mine had college entrance kids and the business/shop kids. For college
entrance you took 2 years of Latin, 2 years of either German or French,
and more STEM subjects. The business kids took Spanish and typing.

All in all Spanish and typing would have been a lot handier in my life...

Yes, it is frustrating that you get "forced" into doing certain combinations
of subjects because you are deemed to be more or less clever.

At my school there were two classes in each year. The clever children (I was
supposedly one of those!) had to do Latin and German; the less clever ones
did Biology and Ancient History.

I wanted to do Biology and German, but that combination was "not allowed"; I
pleaded my case that these were the subjects that were probably more useful
to me, and lack of knowledge of Biology would preclude me from any career
that needed it. The headmaster said I presented my case very convincingly to
him - but not convincingly enough to make an exception to the rule.

I found Latin to be an exceptionally difficult language - mainly because I
could never work out which words in a sentence were the nouns, the
adjectives, the adverbs and the verbs. French and German were much easier to
learn. I think the reason is that both these have "little words" (articles
like "a" and "the", pronouns like "he", and a reasonably logical word order
in which adjectives and adverbs usually go next to the noun or verb that
they are qualifying, and the article and pronoun tend to say "the next word
is a noun or a verb respectively". The capital letter on German nouns is a
big giveaway too! Prepositions ("to", "from") are distinct words.

But Latin has none of those. Everything is communicated in word endings
alone, and you need to remember a lot of permutations, some of which are
reused between different parts of speech. That "Romani eunt domus" speech
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdqXT9k-050 in "Life of Brian" got it
absolutely right. I hadn't realised how much with a foreign language I
depend on the "little words" as a sort of crutch. Word order seems to make a
*virtue* out of putting the adjective as far away from its noun as possible,
ideally next to another unrelated noun (the dreaded "chi-rhoic" construction
that was favoured in Latin poetry - it was seen as "clever" and "educated"
and "elegant").


So when I left that school (my dad changed jobs so we moved to another part
of the country) I had to continue with Latin instead of Biology. The new
school had no hangup about me doing Biology - Latin and Biology were
timetabled at the same time, as true alternatives. But I'd missed too many
years of grounding to be able to pick it up in the fourth form - ie only one
school year before I'd have taken the O level exam in it. So I was stuck
with Latin.

Latin would be very useful if it was taught as a derivation of English
words - "Latin for genealogists", "Latin for historians reading old
documents" etc. But Latin as a grammatical language is dire.


I'd like to have had the "choice" as to whether or not I did Biology at A
level, and the choice as to whether I studied a subject at university that
needed knowledge of it. I may well have chosen not to - but a choice would
have been nice ;-)

At my high school we could take anything we wanted and you got to
graduate as soon as you punched all of the boxes required for that
type of diploma. I ended up taking two years of latin because the
teacher made it interesting. We read Gallic Wars as a war/political
novel with context thrown in by the teacher who also taught ancient
history. The two classes blended together. Second year latin was
mostly reading Cicero. It was an easy way to punch the language and
history tickets. We did learn a lot about the Romans and life in the
Roman army.

"rbowman" wrote in message
...
In one branch of my family the adults would switch to French when they
didn't want the kids to know what they were talking about.

That only worked with my parents until I started to learn French at school
;-)

In article ,
says...

Reading did expand my vocabulary. I read 'The Foxes of Harrow' that was
laying around the house and enjoyed it greatly. That did lead to some
questions at school concerning how a 7th grade kid came to know about
quadroons and octoroons.




I am trying to come up with how I am realated to Warren. My grandmother
on my dad's side claimed to be 1/6 Indian. For the last couple of years
I have been putting down Native American on all places that ask about
race. I can easly trace my mother's side to German. Not sure where the
red hair came in.No one on my dad's side had red hair and I don't know
anything about my mother's side of her mother. Just that my mother did
have red hair.



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In comp.mobile.android, on Sat, 21 Sep 2019 08:37:52 -0700, The Real Bev
wrote:

On 09/20/2019 05:36 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 09/20/2019 08:32 AM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
I don't know how it is now, but 50 years ago the high school had 2 main
devisions. One for those that plan on going to college and one for
those that did not . The college prep course had the higher math like
algebra and geometry, where the other courses just had what was called
general math. I assume that many other courses were similar.

Mine had college entrance kids and the business/shop kids. For college
entrance you took 2 years of Latin, 2 years of either German or French,
and more STEM subjects. The business kids took Spanish and typing.

All in all Spanish and typing would have been a lot handier in my life...

Heh. I took Latin, French, Spanish, typing and shorthand in addition to
algebra and geometry (both of which I sucked at). I agree about Spanish
and typing, although French taught me almost everything I know about
formal grammar; Latin provided the rest.

I took typing in summer school. A very worthwhile investment.

I wanted to take shorthand in college but iirc the shorthand teacher
talked me out of it. IIRC, she had a Ph.D. in business education and
taught shorthand at the college level!!

I had 3 years of Latin. Got bronze and silver medals in the state
contests. Didn't take Virgil because it was supposed to be poetry Took
automechanics instead.

Later I learned Spanish by going to Mexico and Central America. I
took _Spanish through pictures_, that was worthless for me, though might
be good for a different personality, and _Spanish in a Nutshell_, a thin
pocket book which was great, all the rules plus a pretty good glossary.
Unfortunately, they dont' sell the Nutshell series anymore. I hope I
can find mine before I go back to Guatemala.

In article , NY wrote:
It takes some adjustment to work out that Year 12 is what I knew
as Fifth Form and Years 13 and 14 are what I knew as Lower/Upper Sixth ;-)

That is actually off by one. The old 5th form is now called year 11,
and the two 6th form years are therefore years 12 and 13.

Year: Age
R: 4-5 (R = reception)
1: 5-6
2: 6-7
3: 7-8 (ex 1st year juniors)
4: 8-9
5: 9-10
6: 10-11
7: 11-12 (ex 1st year secondary/grammar)
8: 12-13
9: 13-14
10: 14-15 (begin GSCE options)
11: 15-16 (take GCSEs)
12: 16-17 (Lower 6th)
13: 17-18 (Upper 6th - take A levels)

Can't remember when this system started, but it was already in use when
my kids were at school in the late 80s and 90s.

Cheers
Tony
--
Tony Mountifield
Work: - http://www.softins.co.uk
Play: - http://tony.mountifield.org

"Tony Mountifield" wrote in message
...
In article , NY wrote:
It takes some adjustment to work out that Year 12 is what I knew
as Fifth Form and Years 13 and 14 are what I knew as Lower/Upper Sixth
;-)

That is actually off by one. The old 5th form is now called year 11,
and the two 6th form years are therefore years 12 and 13.

Year: Age
R: 4-5 (R = reception)
1: 5-6
2: 6-7
3: 7-8 (ex 1st year juniors)
4: 8-9
5: 9-10
6: 10-11
7: 11-12 (ex 1st year secondary/grammar)
8: 12-13
9: 13-14
10: 14-15 (begin GSCE options)
11: 15-16 (take GCSEs)
12: 16-17 (Lower 6th)
13: 17-18 (Upper 6th - take A levels)

Can't remember when this system started, but it was already in use when
my kids were at school in the late 80s and 90s.

Did it begin as long ago as that? I first heard of it when my nephews were
starting school in the early 2000s, so the change had taken place some time
between when I left school in 1981 and the early 2000s - and evidently not
long after I left.