Hello everyone, Conversation on the list has been kind of slow lately. Guess everyone is busy enjoying summer! Was just thinking about the kids going back to school and wondering about school back in the old country. My mom went to school from the ages of 7-12, for five grades. She repeated grade 3 because she was very sick that year and missed a lot of school. It was a one-room schoolhouse. She really liked watching Little House on the Prairie. The school and life reminded her of home. At some point it was divided into 2 rooms, for older and younger kids. Yes, there was someone who stuck her pigtails in the inkwell! They had slates to do their work. One of her "friends" used to change her answers to incorrect ones so my mom would get in trouble. My uncle has an incredible knowledge of European history. He told me that because there was not a lot of books available they had to really learn and remember what they had been told, which is why he still remembers all this. She learned Serbian, both in Latin and Cyrillic letters and German in both Latin and Gothic. She also spoke a smattering of other languages because of going to two different markets each week to sell farm produce. She really loved working at the markets. She lived in Hrastovac in western Slavonia, a town of about 700-800 residents. She always felt under-educated here in Canada because she only went to 5 grades, but I think she was quite intelligent and knew as much as people who went through the whole elementary and secondary school systems. Maybe not the calculus and trigonometry, but the languages, everyday mathematics, history and geography and she certainly knew a lot of growing crops and raising farm animals and how to fix just about anything. Very practical life skills! Would anyone like to share stories about school life, especially those of you who went to school there? When did school start? What months did it run? Did you get let out at certain times to help in the fields? What were your teachers like? Where did they come from? How were things different in smaller towns and larger towns and cities. Feel free to share any other stories about childhood life during the good times. Darlene ----------------------------------------------- Darlene Dimitrie DVHH-L Email List Administrator