Let’s take a trip back and I will take you along with me. 

When I was growing up and going to school, when I look back, the most important teachers to me were not the ones who looked like me but cared about me. I don’t understand what is going on, when the only way a student could learn is by a teacher who looks like them and had a similar background. At the time I graduated, I remember every single teacher who cared about me. The teacher’s race wasn’t even in my thought process.

I remember Mrs. Gleason who would add in green coloring in her grey hair for St. Patrick’s Day. Mrs. Sappington who was very diminutive and loved to hug her students. Mrs. Daisy who always dressed impeccably.

I remember for Valentine’s Day we’d have a party with little candy hearts and every student had a list of everybody in the class to make out valentine’s cards for everyone in the class. I remember we made paper hats out of newspapers. We would cut out Valentine Hearts. One of our biggest thrills is when we got a pot with soil and put seeds in it and put the flowerpot in the windowsill and watch the plant grow.

I remember how proud it was to do our alphabet on our own, then learning how to write penmanship and add numbers. My mother was always a stickler to say your handwriting should be clear.

I remember for Halloween dressing up in school and having Halloween Parties and parading around the schools in our various costumes. When we went out for recess outside, it was on a hard surface with no soft sponges. Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic were very important and still should be.

As we got a little older, I remember opening up a savings account at banks that had a special student account. We would open up a small passbook so you could learn how to manage your money. Computers were nowhere to be found and no barcodes to scan your grocery items. I remember when we go to a Chinese Restaurant, and they would use an abacus to add and subtract.

I’ve seen an article in the Research Digest British Publication called, “Teaching Children the Ancient Mental Abacus Technique,” boosted their math abilities more than normal extra tuition. There was a comment by a parent who said, “Abacus has proven that it not only improves the ability to calculate faster, but also gives the students the confidence to tackle math problems with ease.”

You know the old saying, “Everything old is new again.” Just think about the things that you did growing up: the games you played, old arcade games that students of today have no clue about. Try taking away their tablets, cell phones, or laptops for an hour. Try an old fashion pinball machine and see how quickly they gravitate to it. 

I remember one time watching the “Ellen DeGeneres Show,” and she had a competition between an older person and a teenager. She plopped down a phonebook and asked the teenager to look up a certain business. The Teenager was finally able to do it, but it took them a while. What was even stranger is when I saw another video when they asked two teenage boys to call up a phone number using a rotary phone. Needless to say, they had a hard time doing so. 

Maybe it’s time to have a little fun in life. If I had a wish, I would have a time machine and take a bunch of kids back when I was growing up and let them experience the simpler things in life before computers. C.M.