School Days-Ward

I hope that School Days will be a reoccurring feature in which I ask people about their early memories of school. Everyone has a story to tell about this and I hope to give them a voice here. 

Here is Today's Story

Six year old Ward at home with new toys.

Ward started school in the early sixties when he was five years old. He went to a Catholic school in the suburban Washington, D.C area.

Tell me about starting school or an early school memory.

I've tried to block all of that out. I was in a Catholic school and I was in trouble all of the time with the the nuns. When I was in third grade, my parents moved me to the public school and I stopped being in trouble all of the time.

Can you remember any specific stories?

One time I really had to go to the bathroom, but the teacher wouldn't let me go. She said I had to wait for recess. When I finally got to go, I was running down the hallway to the bathroom and another teacher stopped me. She took me to the office for running and she wouldn't let me go to the bathroom because I was in trouble. There I wet my pants. They called my mother and she was really angry with the school.

Another time, I didn't finish all of my class work so I was not allowed to go on a field trip. While the rest of the class was on the field trip to the airport, I was sitting in the cafeteria all day doing about 1000 math problems.

Another story. In the beginning, my mother usually walked me to the bus stop. After a while, she let me walk by myself. One day while walking to the bus, a dog bit me. He tore my pants and scraped my leg, but the skin was not broken. All of the kids on the bus told me I was going to get rabies and die. They said I would be put in a room to keep me from everyone else since I had rabies. When we got to school, someone told the teacher that I had gotten bitten by a dog. The teacher took me to the office and they put me in a room by myself. Everything the kids said was coming true. I was very afraid because I thought I was going to die any minute. They called my mother and she came to school and was really angry with the school.

Do you have any positive memories of those first three years?

Not really. But I do remember learning to sound out words and that was very exciting. Oh wait, maybe my mother taught me that.