The other topic never to bring up in GD: Cursive Writing (or lack thereof)

[OriginalGeek]

9. I'm 52 and remember the names of exactly 2 elementary school teachers

I never went to the same school two years in a row until I was in 7th and 8th grade. And on top of that, we never moved during the summer - it was always in the middle of the school year - so I had a lot of elementary school teachers.

I remember Mrs. Henry at Jacksonville's Hyde Park Elementary 3rd grade because she was so kind and encouraging to me. I'm sorry she had to deal with me but she handled it with grace and style and TLC and probably saved some headaches for future teachers.

Because before her there was Mrs. Ockerman from a school in Kentucky in 2nd grade. My mom had taught me pretty early how to write in cursive so I was proud of myself and eager to show-off one day when I wrote my name on my assignment in cursive. Mrs. Ockerman was having none of that. She had never said we couldn't write in cursive but I guess it was supposed to be understood that since we had not been taught in class how to write in cursive we were not supposed to try it. My punishment was to be stood up in front of class and whipped (with a wooden paddle) for not following directions. Then marched over to a neighboring class to be whipped again so they too would know what happened to little boys who wrote in cursive. That was the point I stopped caring if I was "behaving like a good boy". Fuck her.

I got into a lot more trouble in grade school than most of my peers however Mrs. Henry probably did save me from getting into much more trouble.