Moving from the first grade to the second grade is our introduction to the societal need, or personal desire, for advancement. True success is marked not only by the promotion, itself, but with the signs accompanying it. For a grade-school kid, this is more than a mere change from knickers to long pants. Symbolism remains important throughout adult lives too. The number of windows in our workplace becomes a measure of our progress in the company. There is an ultimate desire for the corner office with all of its perks.
When I entered the second-grade classroom at Lincoln Elementary, I was overjoyed. I had made it! A grand future awaited me. I liked being with Miss Dunlap for the first grade and would miss her, but Mrs. Davis, the second-grade teacher, should also be nice. It would be a very good year.
This second year passed quickly and pleasantly with Mrs. Davis, but I was very eager to advance to the third grade. I looked forward to having Miss Scully for my new teacher. Anticipating another great year, I was totally unprepared when the Principal called me into her office to inform me that, on the next morning, I was to report to Mrs. Davis, the second-grade teacher I had last year.
I was being demoted! That was my immediate, horrified thought. Then the next unverbalized questions exploded inside my head. What had I done to deserve this? Had I failed to do something last year? Had the third-grade teacher, whom I had just met, taken an instant disliking to me?
I didn’t cry there in the Principal’s office. It wasn’t until I met Mrs. Davis, on the way back from my meeting with her, that my tears poured forth. As the sobs came, so did my questions: why was I being forced to go back to the second grade? What had I done wrong? Why was I being held back a year?
Mrs. Davis assured me: I had done nothing wrong. I was not being held back. I was not being demoted. She told me of about the new way Lincoln Elementary would be doing things, the new “policy” – but she didn’t use that word. Starting tomorrow, the second through fifth grade would now be taught on a split-class basis.
Beginning with the 1943-44 school year, the second-grade classroom would continue to have five rows of students, with three of them being at the regular, second grade level; the remaining two rows would be for the third grade. While sitting in the second-grade classroom, I would really be in the third grade. As a third grader, I would help her with the students in the second grade.
I believed her. All of the third graders were chosen to help her teach second graders! I felt better. This is probably what my Principal intended would happen. Unfortunately, she had not described it that way during my visit with her.
I had Mrs. Davis for both the second and the third grade and, later, Miss Scully for both the fourth and fifth grade. The sixth grade remained the sole province of Mrs. Sullivan, and later, Mrs. Mortz.
For me, the system did have positive results. It gave me my first experience as a teacher. I helped tutor individual second-graders and, later, fourth-level students when I, myself, was in the fifth grade. These interactions gave me sufficient pleasures and rewards to inspire me to want to become a teacher when I grew up. My “demotion” provided me with the incentive to do what I have enjoyed doing whenever the opportunity came my way over the next eighty years. My love for teaching began at an early age. Going backwards may be going forward, if you change your perspective.