Eighty Memories for Eighty Years: #8 Recess - the Joy of the School Day

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Our family went to school at the University Demonstration School, which was part of the Normal school where my mother had gone to learn to teach school and so had hundreds of students since her time.

Teachers would practise their lessons on us which worked well for them if our regular teachers would stay in the classroom.

We had name tags that we put on our desks to help the students ask us questions.

When our teachers were out of the room, we would switch name cards in the matter of sly seconds: me with Glenys Parry and Glenys with me. And then I would forget who I had switched with that day since a switch with any of our friends would be entertaining for all of the others. Glenys. Glenys? Glenys! Oh yah. That is me, today.

Recess was just as important as school to me: dodgeball, softball, broom ball, skipping-ropes, and picking-up-jacks. One day my friends and I stayed after school to build a snowman. The snow must have been perfect. The snowman got taller and taller. I saw the teacher come to the window a number of times and then leave. Finally she came outside with her coat on and told us all that we had to go home. That was a sad moment – having to leave the playground for home. In retrospect, I can’t remember my mother ever being worried about where we were or asking why we had come home so late. Or if she did ask a question, there seemed to be no shame attached to our arrival time nor did there seem to be any worry on her part.

Arta