When I went to teacher's college in 1957 we were told to be very strict with students. There was to be no fooling around . If kids were being noisy according to the definition of rowdy in those days they were to be dealt with severely. There was a tremendous change during the 40 years I was involved in education. We tried to make school enjoyable so kids would like to come to school.
There were times when very funny things happened. Two of them involve the term "Shut up"
I did not give much homework. I thought it gave kids a reason to not like school. One day it was close the end of the class and I heard. Shut up. He's telling another story. They were hoping to make the class last to the end and it would be too late to assign home work.
I learned that yelling at kids was the wrong thing to do but it did happen from time to time. So one time I yelled and I heard "We better shut up because he never yells.
Needless to say that there was much more noise in most classrooms. We had much group work. This work was highly organized but there was noise. I taught science for a few years and we used a lab approach. There were four kids at each lab table and they had to do experiments and come up with answers.
These incidents were brought to mind when I met a 43 year old woman who had been at my school. I got the feeling that she really didn't like school.
