Virtual school virtually difficult in the olden days

We were sitting around watching television re-runs and then the national and local newscasts one evening during which one of the topics was school closures.

It was announced that in Saskatchewan and elsewhere, schools would remain closed until September and that distance learning via the Internet would continue, allowing teachers, students and parents to be involved in this unusual method of educational delivery. Some students thought the idea of staying home was just fine but missed their friends and the time on the playgrounds and on the sports fields. Others weren’t so sure if at-home learning would be their ticket to the next grade.

Housemate turned to me and asked if I would have been happy to stay at home during a pandemic.

“Dad would have made sure I went to school regardless of the rules,” I immediately responded. My Father drove the school bus for many years and I can count on one hand the number of times that bus didn’t get his passengers to and from school. Snow Days did not exist in his vocabulary and I can see him disregarding the rule of the education director or school bus fleet supervisor.

So, let’s imagine how students would have learned at home during a pandemic in say 1965. For those who haven’t done historical research into the 1960s, here’s some information: we didn’t have home computers, there wasn’t a thing called the Internet, there was no WiFi, Google was only a gleam in someone’s eye and we didn’t have cellphones.

We did have party-line telephones, typewriters, mimeograph machines, textbooks, encyclopedia sets and teachers who would have stepped up and worked ahead to prepare assignments in their subjects to be mailed to students or taken home by students who actually lived in the community.

Under the watchful eye of the parents, the assignments would have been completed via pen and paper and maybe a typewriter and mailed back to the school to be graded and commented upon by the teachers. Return mail would have sent new assignments to be returned and so on. In those days the mail from the school community didn’t have to head to Regina to be sent back several days later to the home community. No siree, the mail from the school would have gone directly to the next town via the mail truck driver, for delivery the very next day. Ditto for return mail.

Over and above the official assignments the parents would have added their own life’s lessons:

Math: figuring out how many 1/4 cup containers would be needed for one cup of flour for the cake; or measuring the levels in the underground tanks and using the formula to determine how many gallons of gas remained in storage.

Biology: seeing how the body of a duck was put together after it was plucked and cleaned and before being cut up for the roasting pan.

Chemistry: learning that large amounts of baking soda will cause other items to sizzle before exploding. Literature: figuring out who did it in the new Nancy Drew mystery book.

Economics: preparing a budget and profit and loss statement for the incredible amount of $18 received monthly from the federal government, payment for being born and hanging around with the parents until turning 18 or finishing high school, whichever came first. Musical education: singing along to songs on the radio; watching Tommy Hunter and Lawrence Welk. And playing my accordion even though lessons would likely have been cancelled because of social distancing.

Back in that day, we didn’t have the ability to make videos for YouTube or FaceBook. Imagine, if you will, a video from our living room of me playing a rousing accordion version of Cattle Call or Under the Double Eagle March.

Yes, just imagine.

Joyce Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.