| We knew it as “number ten school,” just a few blocks from Beth Israel Hospital. It was one of the first elementary schools to utilize a new curriculum in Kindergarten, employing Montessori techniques. Every class was highly diverse. Immigrant children from displaced European communities after World War II mixed easily with third generation immigrant kids from Poland, newly arrived Puerto Rican children, African-Americans, and Americans whose ancestors had been in the country for many decades.
Phyllis Hammer’s Fourth Grade Class in the 1960s
Fourth grade occurred during another intense period of education debate. The Soviets appeared to be ahead of the United States, having gotten to space before we did. Fourth grade was also the last time I can remember a class beginning with a reading from the Old Testament, usually a Psalm. We heard Psalm 121 so often I can still recall it verbatim.
We took field trips by earning the privilege, a system based on points and tied to class progress in learning outcomes. Each row in the classroom was a team and if you could not spell the continents or oceans correctly, the entire row lost valuable points. Our first field trip was to Feeedomland in New York City’s Bronx borough.
An All-Encompassing Curriculum in the Fourth Grade
We learned history and geography, science and math. We learned how to write, keeping a daily notebook. A favorite assignment used art instruction to teach us about animals. Each student was given clay and a specific animal to create out of the clay for our “class zoo.”
Birthdays were celebrated and parents were involved in classroom instruction. Students that did not perform up to expectations could expect a visit by the “class mother” to their parents. Our class mother, Mrs. Catrakia, lived two blocks from our apartment on Van Buren Street. Nobody could bake cupcakes like Mrs. Catrakia. But part of her job was to visit parents of students not doing well in class.
This was particularly embarrassing because it was a parent of another student bearing ill tidings. Parents of students getting such visits – like mine, took more time to ensure their kids were doing the homework and studying. Mrs. Catrakia would definitely not be visiting again with a note from Ms. Hammer.
Fun in the Fourth Grade Classroom
Ms. Hammer was by no means a tyrant, however. Her personal goals were very clear: nobody slipped through the cracks. At lunch, she sent the oldest boy to the local soda shop down the block from the school to buy her a hamburger “smothered” in ketchup. I realized, in retrospect, that this trust gave the boy confidence. Having repeated past grades, he passed Ms. Hammer’s class. At the time, though, I was jealous.
In December Ms. Hammer sent out three boys to buy a large Christmas tree. The entire class made decorations and we used time just before the holiday break for a party. At the end of the school year, she organized a fourth grade picnic at a local park that included all of the other fourth grade classes and their teachers. We had fun in Ms. Hammer’s class, but we also learned.
The Secret of Success in Ms. Hammer’s Fourth Grade Class
Looking everyday into the faces of college students in 2010 I am reminded that although much has changed, the enthusiasm in teaching has not. Today’s students are not required to stand up when giving an answer but they still need to be motivated.
The same ingredients that made Ms. Hammer’s fourth grade class a success are still needed today: parental involvement, a focus on every student to achieve expected outcomes, and an integrated curriculum that applies various disciplinary fields to the daily classroom instructional methodologies.
Ms. Hammer encouraged students to bring in their records – 45s as we called them, with a pop hit single on each side of the small circle of magic. I made the mistake of bringing in Walt Disney’s “Davy Crockett” ballad, which was no match for Elvis or the new rock permeating the airwaves that everyone seemed to be listening to on their transistor radios.
Learning from the Past in Current Education Debate Forums
Today’s classrooms use technology few people could dream about in the 1960s. Books are being replaced by a variety of computer notebooks and “E-sources” are the norm in research. Educational video games make math and science virtual.
But kids need more than the computer screen. They need parents looking over their shoulders, reading their homework, and offering affirmations. Above all they need to learn to write and to think, a process of analysis that can only be learned apart from standardized testing instruction. I don’t know what happened to Phyllis Hammer, but she managed to change my life and probably changed many other lives with her philosophy of education.
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