Do you still have friends from your childhood?

I spent the first 4 years in Spain in a private primary school learning Spanish, and when I was 12 I was put in a public secondary school. @alan20

@NenaRussa Envy you. I love Spain. Even convinced myself that because there was so much smuggling by Spaniards into Galway that I might have some Spanish dna!

You never know ;) @alan20

@NenaRussa Maybe we're related. No, you couldn't be that unlucky!

@alan20 That's too bad. When I was in grammar school, the classes were "A" and "B" divisions, depending on when your birthday was. By the time I reached the third grade, the rules were changed completely and we took a year-and-a-half in one year - skipped the fourth grade entirely. Some kids couldn't make it (I was one of the lucky ones) and they had to repeat the fourth grade. It's a humiliating experience that was never explained to us - but also humbling, because several of the kids that made the jump with me were older than I was.

@MaryJanine Strangely at the time I don't think, or don't remember, that it was having as deep an effect on me as I now believe. We were conditioned to accept things without question.

@alan20 So were we - but teachers were stricter in my day then they are today. No, they didn't hit us (that wasn't allowed) but they had a ball making monkeys out of us by singling you out and yelling in front of the other kids. When I was in the eighth grade, the teacher taking the role didn't remember me from my older sister's graduation. I had met her then as a skinny seven-year-old. Now I was in one of her classes. I told her three times who I was, then gave up and said, "Linda's little sister."

Her face cleared, she bent over her role book to write in my name, blurting, "Boy - did you EVER get FAT!"

it was the first week of school - and I didn't hear the end of it from the rest of the kids. P.S. I was nowhere near fat - I was the right weight and size for a thirteen-year-old.

@MaryJanine I detested my teachers without exception. But once on a long train journey I found myself sitting opposite one of them and he couldn't have been more charming, sharing my enthusiasm for classical music. Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde!

@alan20 I got out of that "little sister" thing when I hit high school. My sister had gone to a different one than I did, and no one knew me there. Of course, my younger brothers both had to go through the I-had-your-sister/brother in-my-class-do-you-think-you'll-be-as-smart-as-them?

I DETEST that. Neither of my brothers were me, and I wasn't them.

@MaryJanine Very true. Teachers of all people should know better.

@alan20 I forget what they did, but what did they use as a conversation starter when they had an only child?

@MaryJanine I know a teacher who is forever talking about the complimentary things her pupils allegedly say to her, which invariably start off with "Miss..."

@alan20 I hate that, too. It makes you feel so OLD. We had a seventh grade/upper grades science teacher (male) who could never remember, out of two seventh grade classes, who was in his class at a particular time! Yes, he too, had the habit of calling on you with "Miss___" or Mr.__________" and made the mistake once of telling us - just once - "If I call the wrong student, just tell me, 'They're in the other class.'"

Well, you know kids. We were like tigers, lying in wait to spring out with his dictation. Once, he said, "Miss Hand" and we yelled back in chorus, "She's in THE OTHER CLASS!"

Mr. Becker didn't turn a hair. He just said, "Miss Foot!"

We all had a good laugh, then he called on me to finish the problem.