Times, styles have changed in our schools

LETTER TO EDITOR

Times, styles have changed in our schools

As a high school substitute teacher for 23 years, hairstyles, dress style and learning styles have changed tremendously as I looked about the classroom. Boys with shoulder- to waist-length hair and short pants. Girls with very long hair, raggy pants and navels showing.

But as I looked back about my classrooms in the 1940s and 50s, wow, there’s no comparison. The boys had “burrs,” flattops and short, neat haircuts. The girls had mostly neck-length hair and knee-length dresses and wore no pants whatsoever.

Not only has dress changed, but the method of learning has changed. I remember as a high school student, when the bell rang, we changed classrooms with no noise, no cellphones and no tardies. We sat down at our assigned desks with book, paper, ink pen and sharpened pencil. Roll was called: “Present, sir or ma’am.” No talking or walking around. And we usually had a library book just in case we finished our work early. The teachers stood in front or the classroom and taught. (That hasn’t changed. Perhaps it has gotten better.)

Speaking of libraries, boy, have they changed. Walking onto a school library now and you see mostly tables and chairs. Bookshelves are getting thinner and thinner and with fewer and fewer books. Must be the result of cell phones and computers.

School parking lots are full of cars, pickups and Jeeps. I have heard that some schools have drug dogs patrolling those parking areas. When I was a kid, there were two or three student cars and the rest were teachers’.

Even though dress, style and learning methods have changed, students are still friendly, nice and want to learn. Times change and us old folks get older, we change, too. In fact, we change a lot, day by day,

Bobby Sloan

Azle