Originally Posted by
welch
Fascinating to read through this thread all at once.
- So Pajaro remembers the ink-jar inserts being in the top right of desks? I started kindergarten in 1953, and our new formica-and-gray desks had a plastic ink jar on the top left, or so I remember from 67 years ago.
- We printed in first and second grades, and began writing cursive in the third grade, using pencils. Every classroom had a green or black chart with example cursive upper and lower case letters stripped above the blackboard. In fourth grade, we began using ink. In the US, those grades were "elementary school". In 7th Grade, we went to Junior High School, and in 10th Grade we went to High School. (Some school districts used an older system, in which kids went to elementary school through 8th grade, and then high school in 9th through 12th grades. I think the Junior High was created to keep the puberty-rocked kids in a separate school that could handle our "awakening".)
How was, and is, the UK school system organized? German schools?
- Most of us bought our school supplies in the local drug store. A typical US Walgreens or CVS still has a school supplies aisle, although no ink, Sheaffer school pens, or plastic-handled stick pens.
- Did German kids practice printing in pencil before moving to fountain pens? What sort, or quality, of paper did you use?
- From 7th Grade onward, I used a Parker 45 that I refilled every day, in the kitchen sink, with Sheaffer Washable Black or Washable Blue-Black. Note: my parents graduated high school in 1940 and 1941, and they had many horror stories of kids ruining clothing with permanent ink. My mother insisted on washable inks, and I liked them because they washed off my hands and out of the sink with no problem. We all learned to protect our three-ring binder and school books from rain storms. Now, I almost instinctively wonder why people demand more-permanent-than-permanent inks, and seem to worry that rain drops are more likely to harm their journals than ink drops are to ruin their clothes.
- I assume that Jon S wanted to limit his fictional trip to Europe because he had to look up and report on each country he fictionally visited. Certainly would have limited me to as few countries as possible.
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