For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for September 03, 2015

Seems like Elly didn’t take Elizabeth school supply shopping. How embarrassing and humiliating for Elizabeth.

When my daughter was in first grade, it was almost a daily occurrence for me to have to drive back to school with something she forgot, usually her lunch box still sitting on the seat of my car after dropping her off.

Just wait ’till your first business meeting 25 years from now, Liz!

Lynn’s Notes:

This was from memory. On my first day of school I seemed to make one gaffe after another. It didn’t take long before I hid my embarrassment by being a clown.

Only 2 pencils? I’m jealous! My son’s school requires 2 boxes for his homeroom and another box for his art room. He also needs 1 pencil sharpener for homeroom and 2 for art. It’s crazy! The entire supply list had over 2 dozen things on it. We even has to buy copy paper (white and color).

When I started school we didn’t need all these things to start, some of them were furnished by the school. i.e. scissors stayed with the class, we did have our own pencils

@10171swTimes have changed. The richest country on the planet has shifted costs. Pencils and scissors are just a first alert; the cost of college or tech training is the real disease.

Is that her future hubby, Anthony, next to her?

I guess I’m from a bygone era. I remember first grade clearly (1963). The school provided everything….we got a large width/fat pencil with an eraser on it, lined paper, paper and crayons for drawing, books. The only thing we had to bring was 3 cents to buy milk. And mothers rotated baking cookies or cupcakes for snack time. It was a good era to be a kid. When I had MY kids, I, too, had to run around like a maniac fulfilling “lists” of things the kids needed for school. And after buying all that stuff, half the time they never used half of it. My own mother was a first grade teacher and she NEVER gave out lists for kids to bring their own supplies. She managed to use the school budget effectively and sometimes just bought special things for her class out of her own money. And this, through 1980.

Like someone said above….scissors stayed in the classroom. After all, how often do you use scissors? You don’t need your own. And you don’t need 30 pairs. Children can share. If you needed tissues, you brought one of those little tiny pocket packs, not a huge box for the class to share. I understand money issues have caused these problems, but as someone wrote above….if you have to buy all this stuff for your own use, why do you turn it all in to the school? 20 pencils? Most kids will need one or two for the whole school year.

My oldest used to be like Elizabeth and forget things. He is far better about that now (at 10), and my 8 year old is struggling. We will get her through it and figure strategies to remember things better. My 6 year old remembers everything better than the adults!

I know our teachers’ budget for the entire year, and how long a box of kleenex lasts during cold season, and how many supplies remain in the average classroom in the final few weeks (hint: no pencils or glue sticks left!) so I’m good with supplies.

Anthony did not appear in the strip until several years later. The earliest “Anthony” strip I could find in the FBoFW archives was from December 1993, which makes it 7 years from “now”, or grade 8.

When I started grade one in 1956, all school supplies were issued to the students by the teacher. We did provide a pencil case to keep them in, though. When my son started in 1983, he didn’t have a list of supplies to buy either. Since this strip was published three years later in 1986, things must have changed about then, although I don’t remember ever having to buy a bunch of supplies for him except paper.

Gotta love the banner page on Lynn’s site today. Elizabeth as a teacher!

Best thing about first day was sharpening all 12 new pencil crayons!!!!

Can honestly say they never actually hit anyone-it was the implied threat, occasionally reinforced by the crack of the ruler/pointer on a desk. The school (nice suburban) used guilt and shame as incentives-instead of little stars on excellent papers we would have ink stamped angels with the phrase “good work” or “I am proud”. For not so good work the stamp would say “you didn’t try very hard” or “you can do better”. Report card time was also “fun” as the pastor would come to class to hand out the cards-of course if you had a lot of “goods” or “very goods” you received praise, “satisfactory” usually received no comment, “poor” or “unsatisfactory” got the “hairy eyeball” from the teacher, a frown and possibly a comment from the pastor, and smirks from classmates. Of course you caught it again when you took it home for your parents to sign-and sign it they did because you took the card back to school for use during the next grading period. Lest anyone think I hated my school experience, it wasn’t as traumatic as todays environment. We all were equal, dressed alike, expected to get along with one another, and received attention when needed. We were expected to perform at our best and we usually tried to do so. Nowadays it seems as all that is expected is that the child show up, occupy their seat and pass the standardized testing. Learning is optional, uniqueness and difference are celebrated, and one dare not criticize any behavior, no matter how antisocial, for fear of scarring the child for life. Teachers and parents try to hard to be the child’s friend instead of being the role model and mentor. One of the results of today’s society is the total lack of respect or interest in anyone else.

my Granduaghter played Clarinet (Bass?) in middle school, now in high school, she was given alto sax to learn for marching band. Every week she comes home with a demand for more supplies. Just the reeds are bad enough, but the uniform rental(which doesn’t include dry cleaning), the shoes, etc is very costly, now they want $45 each for 2 tee shirts(logo + nickname) because she is in 2 groups. It has driven her mom and grandma to tears, because we can’t afford it any more and have to choose which utility to go without for a few weeks.It is really dirty to ask for $700 for the year and then send home extra bills every week.The city would not allow a car wash to raise money because of the drought and it is on our backs now.

Besides the wastebasket or desk in the hall treatment, other methods of obtaining compliance was upending the contents of you desk all over the floor if it wasn’t “neat” or organized. For students who persisted in ignoring instructions to cease and desist whatever was causing an issue, the nun would grasp some of the short hair behind the ear and tug until the child attended to what was being requested of them-this was a close to corporal punishment that we had in our school-the teachers didn’t have to provide punishment-they simply informed our parents who could provide a much better punishment as they knew which of our buttons to push to get results.

For Brooke McEldowney’s view of Parochial education check out the 3/17/2015 strip at 9 Chickweed Lane-Sister Caligula could be the avatar of several of the nuns I encountered in grade and high school.

Way back in the day, public schools had the funding they needed to provide basics to kids (pencils, notebook paper and the like), but would never have been able to handle what is required today. With the standardized tests now being required to be taken on computers in Florida and the State Legislature continually either cutting school funding or requiring it to be given to charters when a school doesn’t ‘pass’ the test, there’s no way that each kid would have a school issued computer.

Last year’s test results just finally were released, but school has already started for the year. So kids had to be promoted (or not) based on something other than those all important tests. Why? Well, because the tests kept crashing halfway through, so kids had to keep retaking them. This meant that regular computer classes were repeatedly missed, because the computers had to be used by kids taking tests.

The testing company (which was paid a boatload of cash for the testing software, naturally) kept waa-waaing about how someone was hacking their system. As if. The Legislature finally decided to pay someone else to evaluate how well the testing company did.

See why school districts can’t afford to buy pencils for their students? This is what my tax dollars buy, these days. Tests that can’t even be used.

Bring back pencils and notebooks…

Stop bashing Ellie. After you put the kid’s pencil box in their backpack the 11th time, the morning of the first day of school, they take it out to look at their loot just before they bring the backpack downstairs and leave it on their bed! Have none of you been parents? There’s nothing like fixing a mistake of your own making that makes you learn responsibility. Lizzie is just going to have to punt.

argy.bargy2I worked my way through (Methodist) seminary partly by teaching square dancing at a black Catholic high school. A nun monitored my class with the apparent task of making sure no one had any fun, and the suspected job of seeing that no Methodist theology got inserted in the dance call patter. On the other hand, the priest/headmaster was a decent and supporting guy, but the teaching order seemed have the real power.

That was my daughter, all through grade school & probably high school. But she was also a National Merit Finalist, went to college on a scholarship, and is now a Mechanical Engineer & computer specialist. And a wife & mom.

First day at school, and already she’s being singled out.

I remember this one from the first series. This strip isn’t a re-run though, Lynn wanted to do it over again – differently.

1n 1950’s Vancouver (same time and place as Lynn) schools provided notebooks and nothing else. Department stores put together kits for each school and grade in the neighborhood. Parents would come in and pick up the appropriate bag for each child — shopping done!

Having survived eight years at St. Mary’s Grammar School, where, yes, I got whacked (only once) for mis-behaving, today I know how to spell. In the last two companies at which I worked, I was appalled at memos, letters, proposals which contained numerous mis-spellings. At one company, when it became known, several department heads would come to my cubicle (on the sly!) and ask me to proof their writings for spelling & punctuation before submitting them.

I ALWAYS seemed to be short on whatever it was that I was supposed to have in the way of school supplies.

khatkhattuI haven’t kept up with square dancing today, but back in the 1950s, it was done with sufficient speed that centrifugal force took care of that.

I love Lizzie’s curls! She’s so cute, somebody will lend her a pencil.

This was me. :) I was always forgetting everything. Mom said she could open a store with all the things I forgot throughout elementary school.