I admit
that this is an over-simplification, but I find there to be an interesting triad to “getting up there in age”. (Trust
me when I tell you that I have the credentials.
I retired 13 years ago, and it wasn’t an early retirement.) First, we tend to love reminiscing, particularly if we can find a grandchild
willing to listen. “Yes, Tricia, when I was your age, and we made a
phone call, we’d pick up the receiver and a lady at the other end would ask what
number we were calling, and what our number was.”
The second
element is being critical of the “modern” ways. “Why, in my day,… blah, blah, blah.
How can kids sign a check, if they don’t know cursive writing?”
Finally, there is a tendency to
think that things will always be as they are now. It is that last point that prompted this
reminiscence about Ignatius in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s. Recently I was cleaning my closet and I came
across a dozen neckties that I wore as a teacher. I had saved them because I will always need neckties.
After all, the world never changes. Now
I realize that I only need one or two
for “state” occasions, so I asked my son, a son-in-law and a grandson, all of
whom are in the “business world” if they’d wanted any of them. No, they don’t wear neckties at work. What?
What’s happening to the world?
This brings me back to
Ignatius. When I started teaching in
1961, it was a requirement that the boys all wore neckties and sport coats. I did a little bit of research…looking in old
yearbooks…and found that, through the ‘60’s, that rule was in tact, but by the
mid-‘70’s, the boys were no longer wearing them.
Another change: A few days ago, as I
walked through the halls of the school, I was startled. My first year teaching
at 1076 was the first year that the students passed from classroom to classroom
to change classes. The students weren’t allowed to talk during the passing, and the teachers were instructed to stand at our doors to enforce that rule. Prior to that, the
students stayed and the teachers went from room to room.
This past
Tuesday, students were lining the halls, sitting on benches, sitting on chairs
and sitting on the floor…and it was during a class period, and as far as I
could tell, things were fine. Some of
the students were talking; others were working on their laptops. When
I passed open classroom doors, there were students sitting at their desks,
busily “typing” (is it still called that?) or reading.
This is NOT a criticism.
It is a simple observation.
Ignatius is still a great school, but the world is a different place
now. There is scant evidence that things
are worse than in the “old days”, as my contemporaries are inclined, and/or choose, to believe. “Why! In my day, those kids would have been hit,
jugged, expelled or all three.”
One last observation about how
things “use to be”. Through most of the
‘60’s, no matter what you academic strengths or weaknesses, you were placed in
a class with all of the students that scored in the same general range on the entrance
exam. Strong in math, but weak in
reading? You might be placed in the same
class as the student who had opposite strengths but had the same overall
entrance exam score…and that might last all four years. Thank heavens, that has been rectified.
