French has always left me puzzled. I prefer languages where the pronunciation is a bit closer to the written word. In one branch of my family the adults would switch to French when they didn't want the kids to know what they were talking about.
We did Christmas carols too. If you didn't like them you could stuff your fingers in your ears.
December was always fun. I was in 'enriched curriculum' classes so many of the students and some of the teachers were Jewish. Chanukah floats around but it was usually good for a lot of missing faces for a week in early December. Then there was the Christmas vacation. You might think it would be back to normal when everyone got back after New Years but then the Russian and Ukrainian kids did Russian Christmas. This year Chanukah is on the late end of the scale, December 30, so no joy there.
It was good training for later life. It's been my experience that despite all the schedules and implementation roadmaps nothing ever happens in December.
Quebec or Parisian French? It was amusing in my high school when the teachers tried to teach their version of French to kids who were immersed in their version of French at home.
Hard to imagine today but how to speak Latin was also a hot topic between the public school and Catholic school kids. Who said Latin is a dead language?
I was about 11 when I saw 'Home From the Hill' with Robert Mitchum. I thought it was a cool movie about hunting and stuff. I rewatched it a few years ago and had a different outlook. I still liked the movie.
Reading did expand my vocabulary. I read 'The Foxes of Harrow' that was laying around the house and enjoyed it greatly. That did lead to some questions at school concerning how a 7th grade kid came to know about quadroons and octoroons.
At my high school we could take anything we wanted and you got to graduate as soon as you punched all of the boxes required for that type of diploma. I ended up taking two years of latin because the teacher made it interesting. We read Gallic Wars as a war/political novel with context thrown in by the teacher who also taught ancient history. The two classes blended together. Second year latin was mostly reading Cicero. It was an easy way to punch the language and history tickets. We did learn a lot about the Romans and life in the Roman army.
That only worked with my parents until I started to learn French at school ;-)
I am trying to come up with how I am realated to Warren. My grandmother on my dad's side claimed to be 1/6 Indian. For the last couple of years I have been putting down Native American on all places that ask about race. I can easly trace my mother's side to German. Not sure where the red hair came in.No one on my dad's side had red hair and I don't know anything about my mother's side of her mother. Just that my mother did have red hair.
I took typing in summer school. A very worthwhile investment.
I wanted to take shorthand in college but iirc the shorthand teacher talked me out of it. IIRC, she had a Ph.D. in business education and taught shorthand at the college level!!
I had 3 years of Latin. Got bronze and silver medals in the state contests. Didn't take Virgil because it was supposed to be poetry Took automechanics instead.
Later I learned Spanish by going to Mexico and Central America. I took _Spanish through pictures_, that was worthless for me, though might be good for a different personality, and _Spanish in a Nutshell_, a thin pocket book which was great, all the rules plus a pretty good glossary. Unfortunately, they dont' sell the Nutshell series anymore. I hope I can find mine before I go back to Guatemala.
That is actually off by one. The old 5th form is now called year 11, and the two 6th form years are therefore years 12 and 13.
Year: Age R: 4-5 (R = reception)
1: 5-6 2: 6-7 3: 7-8 (ex 1st year juniors) 4: 8-9 5: 9-10 6: 10-11 7: 11-12 (ex 1st year secondary/grammar) 8: 12-13 9: 13-14 10: 14-15 (begin GSCE options) 11: 15-16 (take GCSEs) 12: 16-17 (Lower 6th) 13: 17-18 (Upper 6th - take A levels)Can't remember when this system started, but it was already in use when my kids were at school in the late 80s and 90s.
Cheers Tony
Did it begin as long ago as that? I first heard of it when my nephews were starting school in the early 2000s, so the change had taken place some time between when I left school in 1981 and the early 2000s - and evidently not long after I left.
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