In a message dated 00-11-23 22:05:14 EST, Sharon Dickman wrote:

<< The note under the section for parents signature says: Your signature on
this card does not indicate your approval or disapproval of this report, but
shows that you have inspected it.  You are invited to make inquiry at the
school if further information is desired.  Such conferences should be held
when school is not in session.  There are few legitimate excuses for absence.
 When the child returns to school after absence, a written statement giving
the cause is required.   >>

I hesitate to add to this thread because I'm not sure it has much relevance
to museum concerns--although I'll add something pertinent at the end.  These
trips down memory lane reminded me of my own school days in northern Indiana.
 My recollections of elementary school in the late 1940s and early 1950s are
similar to everyone else's--the cloak rooms, etc.  What I remember about the
cloak room was that kids in the school rhythm band had to change into
uniforms there--one shift for girls, one shift for boys.  The first time I
had to do so I was mortified to find that we had to undress down to our
underwear to put on the uniforms--I had somehow imagined that one wore the
uniform OVER one's regular clothes.  After 6th grade we did enter junior high
school for 7th and 8th grades, where the big change was having to go to a
different classroom for every course, just as in high school.  Our junior
high school was the town's original high school, a much larger high school
having been built probably in the 1930s.  All through elementary school we
knew that junior high school came before high school, so I have no idea
exactly when junior high had been instituted.  I have absolutely no memory of
junior high school lockers, but think we must have had them because I know
there were no cloakrooms.  The high school had corridor lockers and we were
issued combination locks for them.

Sharon's remarks about parental notes for absences reminded me that all
through junior high school I never took a note from my parents after being
out sick.  Somehow we had gotten the incorrect idea that it was no longer
necessary then, as it had been in elementary school.  I had asthma, and I'm
fairly sure I was the only kid in our school with that affliction--I probably
had more sick days than anyone else.  Each time I returned to school after
being out sick (and, frankly, I hadn't always been sick but sometimes used my
asthma as a cover for "mental health" days), I sought out the principal, who
presided over the large study hall where we had to report for attendance
before going to classes, and simply told him I had been sick, without
producing any verifying note.  He always gave me a slightly pained look,
paused and stared into space for a moment, then without a word wrote a slip
to take to my classes.  Only when I got to high school and found that notes
from home were still required for absences or tardiness did it dawn on me
that I had been committing a faux pas for two years in junior high by not
bringing written excuses from my parents--I have no idea why the principal
didn't say something, but I finally realized why he had been giving me the
funny looks.

Some years ago a museum guard gave me a small collection of memorabilia from
a midwestern elementary school student of the 1930s.  It included Valentines
from other kids and the child's certificates, report cards, school health
documents, etc. (especially a rather cranky note from the school nurse to the
boy's mother, saying you should take this kid to a dentist).  Later I found
that the person who had catalogued this stuff had indexed only the Valentines
(we have other extensive Valentine collections), failing to note the other
documents, which I thought were potentially of greater interest.  So I added
other pertinent descriptors to the catalogue record, assuming that sooner or
later someone will want to access these things.  Thus far we've acquired only
one other collection of school records, from the 1960s, but would like to
have similar materials from other periods and regions.  Actually, now that I
think about it, the reminiscences posted to this list constitute significant
historical documentation, and I've saved them in my own archive--so I take
back what I said above about relevance.

David Haberstich

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