Sixth Grade

My sixth grade teacher was Miss Arndt, also a rather willowy person (like Miss Rice in first grade and like my aunt Ruth). She too was around for only a year or so.

My seat was in the row furthest from the windows and near the back of the room. Near me sat a boy by the name of Laurence Larson, whose parents lived on a farm. I believe his father had died and his mother had remarried. At any rate I recall the impression that her second marriage didn’t match her first in quality and Laurence realized this.

He was only an acquaintance in sixth grade; he vanished from my life thereafter and I have no memory of him from an earlier grade.

The other clear recollection I have from sixth grade was in connection with a fictional assignment that Miss Arndt considered good enough so I was invited to read it for the class’ attention. I have no memory of what I had written.

In sixth grade was the first of the county tests. I don’t know if these are still given; I’d guess probably not. These were tests designed to ascertain if pupils had achieved the level of performance so that the county system would certify that they had successfully complete their elementary training (i.e. through eighth grade). They may well have been a carryover from the time of rural schools, when a substantial fraction of the county’s students attended these one-room institutions.

The test in sixth grade was for geography, and after that we no longer had a class in it. This was a subject in which I remember how the first text started out — in the region of Mesopotamia which is fitting enough as the cradle of civilization, although I certainly didn’t realize it at the time.

I suppose the subject was introduced in third or fourth grade and by the time sixth grade was complete the whole globe had been covered and the time for the county test was appropriate.

I think one or two county tests were administered in the seventh and the remainder in eighth grade. Each of the tests consisted of perhaps a dozen questions, all of which I seem to recall were essay type or what I call “actual answer” questions. That is , they were not true/false or multiple choice so that guessing was not an alternative to knowing the answer or the subject of the question.

Grading them must have been quite a task for the county staff. Satisfactory completion of the tests was a criterion for entry into high school. My friend John Woodard was admitted into high school on this basis. The Gowrie system had decided to retain him in the eighth grade for a repeat year, but since he had passed the county tests he was allowed to go on to ninth grade.

Annie Lines, who was at the time caring for the orphaned Woodard boys, was the individual who gave the impetus to John’s advancement in this way. Had it not been for she I suspect he would have been retained behind me.

While on the subject of tests I might mention that from the fourth or fifth grade on through the senior year in high school, the school year was divided into two semesters, each having three six-week periods. After the first two of the six-week periods there were “six-week” tests in all subjects which all the pupils took. At the end of the semesters there were semester tests, and in the case of these, students performing at a prescribed level and with satisfactory deportment were exempted.

I don’t recollect taking a single semester test in the elementary grade of high school. In retrospect I think this was a disservice, although I certainly didn’t regard it in that light then. I think the practice in taking tests would have been a valuable experience and incentive all through those school years.

In the grades through sixth, there was no physical education classes, at least I don’t remember any. There was instruction in vocal music; this was provided by the music teacher who came around periodically for a 15- or 30-minute period. I don’t think it was every day but maybe 2 or 3 times a week. The music instruction continued on, on some similar basis in junior high, but there were from seventh grade on specific physical education classes. Often these consisted just of play in the school gym in the winter or of organized softball games outside in fall and spring. However, occasionally there would be calisthenic instruction — I remember them being led by Mr. Leistra the school superintendent. Gowrie was a small school (even though it was the second largest school in the county) and the teachers, even the superintendent, had to fill in the gaps and niches in the instructional makeup. The teachers, for example, were on a rotating schedule to provide someone in charge during the noon hour, and probably during the recesses.