Seeing the projects that Leah is working on, such as her model of an 18th century California mission, the 3-D pyramid she made depicting different themes in the Madeleine L’Engle book “A Wrinkle in Time,” and the Gold Rush musical her class is in the midst of rehearsing, I am filled with gratitude for the quality of her education and her love of learning. I had lunch today with one of my favorite local authors to talk about a new book she is developing for Heinemann. When this woman used to teach Kindergarten, she had the kids studying Picasso and creating art in his style; her third grade class lobbied the Santa Monica City Council to save a historic building from demolition; and her fifth grade class did a simulation of a trial involving fugitive slaves and the people who helped them. Thank God for great teachers. Unfortunately such folks are moving increasingly against the tide.
I was reading about Margaret Spellings, our brand new Secretary of Education (and personal favorite of Karl Rove), and wondering why there wasn’t rioting in the streets when her nomination was announced. It’s no accident that her very FIRST act as Education Secretary was threatening to pull funding from PBS because of a cartoon called “Postcards from Buster” about a bunny who learns about maple sugaring in Vermont and in the process meets two women who are…brace yourself for the shock…LIVING TOGETHER! From all the ruckus you’d think the animated couple were ringleaders of a hardcore gay sex network and were forcing Buster to perform lewd acts on SpongeBob SquarePants. Oy. there is trouble ahead, folks, and frankly, my fears are less about the Department of Education’s new Puritans and more about how the vile No Child Left Behind Act (which Spellings had a big part in crafting) is setting education back about 40 years in this country.
I am a product of the Chicago Public School system. I think it was a pretty lousy education overall but we didn’t really know it at the time. Forty years ago this month I was halfway through my first year at Mary Gage Peterson Elementary School. Our school building was an imposing structure, built on land once owned by Pehr S. Peterson, a Swedish immigrant who made a fortune from his tree nursery. He supplied all the trees for the 1893 World’s Fair and was responsible for most of the trees and shrubs in Chicago’s beautiful public parks. His wife, Mary Gage Peterson, was an expert in forestry herself and one of the earliest advocates for protecting forests from lumbering, mining, and other commercial interests. Mrs. Peterson met with Theodore Roosevelt several times and encouraged him to take an active role in conservation issues. After her death in 1922 it was decided that the school being built on the site of her former estate should be named after her.
The images I remember of Peterson School seem to belong to a different world. For most of my time there we sat in the original bolted-in wooden desks from 1925 with holes for inkwells and graffiti from Herbert Hoover’s presidency. If you ran your hand across the bottom of these desks you’d find stalagmites of ossified gum, most chewed long before World War II. We still had the original schoolhouse pendant light fixtures (the kind that yuppies like me are now searching for on eBay) and the enormous wood-framed windows that opened from the top. We used those incredibly long wooden poles from the 1920s with the brass hooks on the end to open the windows and it was always a special honor to be chosen to wield those poles. I can still remember the sensual feel of the smooth, varnished wood beneath my fingers as I tried to fit the hook in the wooden frame without breaking the ancient glass.
Rumor had it that my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Reid, was there when the school opened in 1925. We didn’t have nursery school back then so the first day of Kindergarten was a huge and often traumatic milestone. I remember the growing panic I felt when I realized my mother was actually leaving me with these total strangers. Even the full-sized slide and miniature log cabin playhouse inside our Kindergarten classroom did little to assuage my anxiety that first day. Helen Kotsoulous cried so much that her mother was called in to take her home but, try as I might, I could not muster up the tears, my natural emotions already deeply suppressed at the age of five.
Miss Stark was my first grade teacher and in my mind she was the clone of Helen Crump, Opie Taylor’s teacher (and eventual stepmother) on the old “Andy Griffith Show.” I remember first grade as the dawn of our literacy caste system that would follow and stigmatize us throughout our long school careers. Early in the year our class was divided up into two distinct reading groups. I believe they had some easy-to-decode labels such as the Tadpoles and the Frogs, but we cut right to the chase and renamed the groups the “Smart Kids” and the “Dummies.” We used those terms openly and I don’t remember Miss Stark trying to stop us. But being a Smart Kid didn’t protect me from social ridicule. Sitting up in front of the class one day in the half-circle of tiny chairs reserved for the Smart Kids (while the Dummies watched us wistfully from their nailed-down desks), I had “an accident” in my pants (number 1, as we referred to it back then). The sensory images of this experience are still white hot in my mind: the pungent odor, the feeling of wetness on my legs, the stain on my pants, the red-faced shame spreading like a rash. I can’t remember who was called or how the situation was remedied so in my mind I’m permanently stuck in that half-circle, exposed as if the Dummies are punishing me for daring to sit with the Smart Kids.
When I think of my old teachers I always imagine them towering over me even though I’m sure most were of normal height or below. But even as a short second grader, I remember my teacher Mrs. Kipnis at my own level. Is that possible? Was she a three-foot dwarf? At some point in second grade, a bunch of outsiders “from the city” came to our class and started giving special tests. I never knew if it was because of baby boomer overcrowding in my grade or what, but after the results of these tests came in, Steven Newman, Hilary Kaye, Scott Whitcup, and I were told that we would be skipping third grade entirely and jumping right to fourth.
Here’s my advice if your child is being encouraged to skip a grade in school: Don’t do it! It worked out fine for the four of us academically, but socially, my geekiness was even more set in stone. I would have been branded a complete outcast if not for the coattails of my older brother Bruce who was always a star student, and my popular sister Sue who had one steady boyfriend after another, starting in first grade. Physically, I had already been one of the shortest and youngest kids in my grade, so now I seemed to be from another species than the rest of the fourth graders. Nobody had bothered to tell me what students normally learn during third grade so I arrived in Mrs. Shapiro’s class completely unprepared. After our morning pledge I opened my mouth to sing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” as the rest of the class started warbling “The Star-Spangled Banner.” I was still neatly printing my letters while the rest of the class had moved on to cursive. My main memory of Mrs. Shapiro is that she was obsessed with the multiplication tables and had a permanent twitch in her eye from the time her young son stuck a fork in it.
My fifth grade class was a split with sixth grade, making my tiny size even more obvious, and I was an easy target for the sixth grade boys. One day two of them cornered me in the boys’ bathroom and, in between hurling wads of wet paper towels upwards so they’d stick on the tiled ceiling, asked me if I knew what the word “fuck” meant. “Of course I do,” I replied, and ran out of the bathroom as fast as I could. But in truth I had no idea. Our teacher, Miss Geib, was a borderline sociopath. I remember her frequently smashing unruly sixth grade boys against the lockers even though most of them already towered over her. Oh well, at least I had escaped our sadistic third grade teacher, Mrs. Luby, who kept her room as hot as a furnace all year long, refused to open the windows, and used to punish children by making them sit under the piano while she played it vigorously.
My sixth grade teacher, sweet Mrs. Rosenstein, was a welcome relief from Miss Geib’s venom, and I instantly developed a big crush on her. By seventh grade, I was beginning to catch up socially and attended my first kissing parties. This was the year I had the hots for Judy Stigler, Debbie Shub, and Rhonda Hellstrom. Our teacher, Mrs. Stone, was the first to depart from the dry-as-dust textbooks and engage us with real literature and current events. It was 1970 and the forces of change were finally starting to have an impact on the Chicago Public Schools—a system which had been in a kind of Eisenhower-era time warp for most of the previous decade. Although the Apollo astronauts had landed on the moon in the summer after sixth grade, our science books still treated manned space missions as something we could only dream about. Mrs. Stone left the school for the second part of the year and was replaced by young, hip Mrs. Pink, who bore a strong resemblance to Stella Stevens. I mentioned her in my sex education post and told how we would try to foil her plans to be the grooviest teacher at Peterson School by making her life a living hell!
When I started eighth grade, the design horror of the early 1970s reared its ugly head and we watched as the cool antique fixtures were taken down and replaced by garish fluorescent lights in a lowered ceiling of white acoustic panels. The low ceilings blocked the top of the windows so the antique wooden poles were thrown away along with the original wooden desks which were pried up from their moorings and replaced with hollow metal desks that echoed throughout the building if you even brushed against them lightly. I’ll never forget our slightly batty French teacher, Miss Genitis, lecturing about how she would like to find out who manufactured these desks so she could line them up along the brick wall outside and be a one-woman firing squad, killing them all with her steady stream of machine gun fire to pay for the constant metal clattering that was wearing on her last nerve!
Our eighth grade teacher, Mrs. O’Connor, was a throwback to the old style of teaching but her real passion was music. No matter what we were studying, she’d always end up at the big upright piano in the corner of the room teaching us medleys of patriotic war songs or obscure novelty numbers from long-forgotten musicals. You can see I never made it out of the first row in the class photo.
Our little school did have one famous graduate. NPR correspondent Susan Stamberg went to Peterson in the mid-1940s and a few years ago did a report on "Weekend Edition" about the school's 75th anniversary and her fondness for the place where she began her lifelong love of the written word.
Well, in typical blog style, I haven't really addressed my intended topic of the current state of public school education in this country. But at least this survey of my elementary school teachers has reminded me how far the teaching profession has come in the past 40 years, despite all attempts by our government to turn the clock back.
Danny, This piece should/could go into an education journal of some kind replete with photographs and all.
It gives a detailed description of teachers and the effect they have on children. It reminds us that we were all children once, and that emotional memories last forever.
The photograph of Spellings (oy the name!) is blood chilling.
Posted by: Tamar | February 19, 2005 at 09:35 AM
Danny: Don't know how I found this website (I think I typed in Rhonda Hellstrom because hers is one of the few classmate names I can still remember; I do that once in a great while when I'm having a nostalgic moment). Fun to know pictures of me from fifth and eighth grades are circulating on the Net. I saw your funny riff on Mrs. Seidman's Christmas carols a few years back but never bothered to get in touch. I'm living in Cornwall now (about 250 miles southwest of London)- my second husband and I moved here last September in anticipation that Dubya might steal a second term. BTW, I also heard Susan Stamberg's Peterson School story on NPR and was totally enchanted. I have a dreamy memory of those innocent few years after kindergarten and her essay reinforced it -- you never do forget where you learned how to read. (And yes, I remember being in the "A" reading group too!) Drop a line and let me know how you're doing. Keep up the nice work with freelance writing.
Regards,
Donna Anton
[email protected]
Posted by: Donna Anton | April 13, 2005 at 09:46 AM
I attended Peterson from Kindergarten (1958) through 8th grade (1967); then it was on to Von Steuben. I loved looking at your pictures and reading your comments about the teachers--many of whom I also had. Mrs. Luby scared me into learning the "times tables." I thought Miss Genitis was fun, and I loved Mrs. Stone. Thanks for the nostalgia.
Posted by: M. White | June 06, 2005 at 07:03 PM
Danny,
I enjoyed reading your blog. June Kaiser (my sister's friend)turned me on to it. Man,you have a great memory! I didn't remember half of that. I was in Mrs. O'Connors class with you. I do remember the piano playing and flabby arms when she conducted.I saw Jill Chaiken a couple of years ago and she dates a friend of mine. I do remember Mrs. Shapiro's multiplication tables and I think it helped me to this day.
Drop me a note sometime.
Regards,
Kenny Pozner
[email protected]
Posted by: Kenny Pozner | February 05, 2006 at 08:01 AM
You brought back some great memories.I personally am glad that you skipped a grade,making it possible for my picture to make it twice to the internet.I'm still living in the area and keep in touch with many people from the neighborhood.Ross Waxman,Sandy Siegal,Susie Specter,and all of the Rapoports and of course,my sister Paula and my brother-in-law Scott Clar.I want to hear from more Petersonites. Alan Spector- [email protected]
Posted by: Alan Spector | February 06, 2006 at 10:50 PM
I have read two of your blogs. Although I enjoy reading the descriptions of Von Steuben and Peterson, I take issue with your statements as to the quality of the education at both schools and your comments as to the racial situation at Von. While your experiences with respect to relations between white and African-American students at Von seem to have been lacking in meaning, mine were not. Some of us have lasting friendships as a result of the Permissive Transfer program. I also have no problem with the quality of the education at both schools. I do, however, still have nightmares about Mrs. Shapiro. She was also the best teacher I ever had.
Posted by: Scott Clar | February 07, 2006 at 07:37 AM
Hey, Scotty. I'm glad you had a different experience at Peterson and Von. Most of us turned out okay so the quality of education couldn't have been that bad--and I'd be the first to say that some of the teachers there were extraordinary. It was also a different time--I look at the activities my 5th grade daughter is involved in at her school and wish we had been exposed to such things. I'm also glad you formed lasting friendships with people of all races during those years. Most of my essays about my childhood are more revealing of my own personal neuroses and issues than any hard and fast "truths" about my experience. I think it's interesting to read a variety of people's memories of the same events and see how completely different they can be.
P.S. For all my talk about progressive education, I think Mrs. Shapiro's table papers were a great idea. Nothing wrong with rote memorization from time to time...
Posted by: Danny | February 07, 2006 at 07:54 AM
Oh man, what a retrospective! Though we didn't move in the same circles in grade or high school (in fact I don't think I HAD a circle, but that's a whole different blog), but we passed through both Peterson and Von at the same time, including the (in)famous "Tables" Shapiro for 4th grade the same year. After 5th grade and obergrupenfuerer Geib (nothing borderline about her sociopathology, by the way), I had Stone for 6th, Cline (Klein? Kline?) and Sorensen for 7th, and Wahle and Andrews for 8th grade (I think)
In fact, my strongest memory of you was when we were both in Mr. Daniels' film class in high school. Your final project was head and shoulders above anyone else's, and I'm convinced my B+ kinestasis film would have been an A in any other year (Incidentally, 1975 is the last time I used the word kinestasis before today). It's odd what sticks in one's memory and what doesn't.
At any rate, I just wanted to thank you for refreshing some of the best times (mostly Peterson) and worst times (mostly Von Steuben) I had in academia.
Posted by: Larry Paullin | April 01, 2006 at 03:40 PM
Oh, and just to clarify matters, it was Krane (or Crane) for 7th grade.
Posted by: Larry Paullin | April 01, 2006 at 04:06 PM
Danny,
Sometimes I have trouble remembering what I did yesterday. However, I can remember in complete visual detail hundreds of scenes from Peterson and the old neighborhood. How about your Mom dressing up as the most unbelieveable witch and taking Sue and I trick or treating on Halloween. In 4th grade Mrs. Shapiro made me sit at her desk when she left the room and give her a full detailed report on the misbehavior of the children. I really gained alot of popularity from that. You always had the greatest junky food in your house. How about the queen tapes on the first video camera. I can go on and on, but I'll stop now. Was I weird looking in one of those pictures? Your article was completely enjoyable. Thanks, Fran
Posted by: Fran Stein Fryman | August 14, 2006 at 04:04 PM
Danny,
Sometimes I have trouble remembering what I did yesterday. However, I can remember in complete visual detail hundreds of scenes from Peterson and the old neighborhood. How about your Mom dressing up as the most unbelieveable witch and taking Sue and I trick or treating on Halloween. In 4th grade Mrs. Shapiro made me sit at her desk when she left the room and give her a full detailed report on the misbehavior of the children. I really gained alot of popularity from that. You always had the greatest junky food in your house. How about the queen tapes on the first video camera. I can go on and on, but I'll stop now. Was I weird looking in one of those pictures? Your article was completely enjoyable. Thanks, Fran
Posted by: Fran Stein Fryman | August 14, 2006 at 04:04 PM
What fun to read the comments and recollections of Peterson. I attended there from 1934 - 1941, then moved on to Von. Despite preceding you by a generation, I was delighted with your memories of the windows, bolted desks, high ceiling fixtures, and kindergarten furnishings, all of which were as you describe Did they get rid of the sand table?
Posted by: John Erickson | November 08, 2006 at 11:29 AM
Wow. I go to peterson school and Guess what?! Mrs.Shapiro is now Ms.Sultan because she got divorced and shes not a third grade teacher, She's the consultunt(sp?). her daughter Jodi Shapiro was my third grade teacher but is now a fifth grade teacher and shes a bit crazed with Mulitplication too. They are both awesome and wonderful and i just like to say you wrote an awesome story!
Posted by: Mary | November 28, 2006 at 02:46 PM
Sorry, a little late to the party but I just found this site. On my desk in front of me are 7 of the 9 reports cards from my time, 68-77 at Peterson. Though several years behind most of you I recognize some of your names. Lets see, I had Mrs. Reid last year she taught, Mrs. Kipnis, Mrs.Roin/Mrs.Krum for 2nd, Mrs.Bikshorn, Mrs.Gillick, Mrs. Sideman (she creeped me out back then), Mrs."I'm going to change the world" Colbertson(she was a culture shock fresh from college amongst all the "old school" old timers eh?) Mr. Wahle (the best!) and Mr. "Poopsi" Andrews. I thank God for those "old school" teachers, though back then what we thought of them was a different story.
I went through Peterson last year when my kids (14&6 then)had an off day. Peterson was having parent-teacher meetings so we wandered freely through the old place.
Man did it seem small! Gym looked almost the same, balcony of the auditorium still had the old seats, the walls still have the same old cracks, same curtains and even same pictures of Washington and Lincoln on either side of the stage. Back then those looked to be 100 years old.
Went on to Von after that, what a dump! Seems worse now. Anyone remember that crazy guy that drove down the sidewalk (circa 79 or 80) from the south end of the school to the north in that big old 'mafia' looking car?
Posted by: Jeff Kanter | September 28, 2007 at 11:49 PM
I am a 6th grader now in the peter son scholand i love that school
Posted by: Haarisah | March 14, 2008 at 05:58 AM
Im in 6th grade right now in mary gage peterson does anyone know ms.symth,mr.brady,or ms.bell
Posted by: haarisah | March 30, 2008 at 04:27 PM
Your memory of that generaton of CPS architecture is amazing. I attended Boone School, a Peterson clone, during the 50s. You brought back long forgotten details of the elementary school experience.
Posted by: Marty Taylor | May 12, 2008 at 08:26 PM
I just noticed that Haarisah, who is in my class, commented on this. I was searching for the school website, and this popped up. Well, now me AND Haarisah are going into 7th grade, and the food is still horrible. But, they are renovating the school! There is going to be a real cafeteria and there's an addition in the building as well... at last we will not have to eat in the gym on cafeteria tables! (it isnt the same after a private school in a foreign country :P)
Posted by: Libby | August 02, 2008 at 12:26 PM
hi,
I just found your blog about peterson school while I was trying to find a teacher I had there. you must have been there a few years before me. I was there in 1974 & 1977-79. I remember those teachers quite well. Mrs. Bichshorn who was just so mean and cared so little and only liked me because i had my hair done in fancy salons. For 5th grade I had the amazing luck of having a teacher called Mr. Carter Glass who I am despertly trying to find now but to no avail. Anyway, I guess you could add me to list of semi-famous people from that school. I was the lead singer of the 10,000 Maniacs until last year.
Posted by: oskar saville | November 24, 2008 at 12:42 PM
Danny, you have such a vivid memory and a talent for writing. Myself I cannot consciously remember much about Peterson school, about the old neighborhood. The details of what things looked like, the students' and teachers' names, the anecdotes--I'm sure they lie in my mind too, though in some dim, dusty corner. The memories I do have are more like emotional imprints, my internal reactions to the experiences and how those reactions shaped me as a person for better or worse. For example, softball was the be-all and end-all of everything and defined who was in the mainstream and who was on the nerd-fringes. I think that would make a good essay, about softball, the Peterson schoolyard neighborhood games and all that it meant and all that it symbolizes and all that it affected.
Posted by: Mike Friedman | November 24, 2008 at 07:03 PM
Danny your article was fantastic and entertaining. I attended Peterson from 1976-1984. I freakin hated that school. It was horrible and I remember seeing kids crying all the time. I also remember all the ghetto kids that attended and all the bullies. Horrible time of my life I can assure. Still, I very much enjoy your historical perspective. What did the old lights look like in the class rooms and school halls? Do you have any pictures? I also wonder what Peteron School looked like in the 1920"s; the foilage, the school yard, ie. I wish people had pictures of back then to post up. Must be fascinating. Great article!
Posted by: Richard | December 14, 2008 at 07:42 AM
Richard, I have no photos but wonder if the old heating plant (a detached building) still stands, if the "ventilators" along the west side of the building are still summer-evening rendevous sites. Is Weiner's Deli still across the street to the north where we'd purchase 16" balls for important games? Back in the 30s Miss Schroll was pricipal. Mrs. Person taught 8th grade. I recall field trips to Bowman Dairy, Field Museum. Springfield, the opera "Hansel and Gretel", the Planetarium and the County Jail. It was the depths of the Great Depression but we were happy.
Posted by: John | April 11, 2009 at 05:22 AM
Your photo of Peterson school shows the new fence. But I loved the old fence. You could walk on it,and the better your balance, the further you got. I never missed a chance to walk the fence on my way north on Christiana to Bryn Mawr....... to Tanya's for an early dinner, to Hamilton's for school supplies, or maybe all the way to the library sub-branch. When I was older and a volleyball fanatic, I remember playing over the tall fence at the north end of the school.
Posted by: Lynne | April 25, 2009 at 06:55 PM
Peterson school ROCKS!!!!!!
im going to mrs bramleys class in fourth grade
Posted by: Rena | July 16, 2009 at 08:28 AM
In response to John who posted on 4/11/2009, yest the old heating plant building is still there. If you all want to see what Peterson School looks like today go to google and type in flickr. Then in the search field type in peterson school and you will get a whole bunch of current photos. It is very interesting. Again, if anybody has pictures of Peterson from 30's on, please post. I love the history.
Posted by: Richard | July 29, 2009 at 06:26 PM
i am currently in sixth grade. my teachers are mr. Brady, Mrs. Saucedo and ms. Koziarski. they are all pretty great with exception of mrs.Mann. ugggghh!! the school is terrific and the teachers are nice, because not only will they be your teachers they will be your friends! im looking forward to seventh grade, but for right now i am happy where i am!
Posted by: bubbles | December 15, 2009 at 02:42 PM
In '08 Richard asked what the school looked like years ago. It's 69 years since I left Peterson for Von Steuben. There was no fence around the school, the basic building and heating plant looked as they do now. The entire block otherwise was covered with a white crushed rock. We would play "pinners" throwing a hard rubber ball at the curved cement wainscoat. The fielders would try to catch the ball on the fly to prevent "base hits". "Buck-Buck" was a forbidden game. Marshal Orloff of our class became professor and chief of surgery at U.Cal.San Diego.
Posted by: John | February 19, 2010 at 04:46 AM
I am amazed to have found this blog item and the comments. I attended Peterson School from 1958 to 1962. I had Mrs. Shapiro for 3rd grade. She was my nemesis! "Times tables" every single day for a half a year (before we moved away to Deerfield). Like some of the others, I think it helped me become a whiz at math. But she was mean. My parents later told me they wondered if she didn't like me because I wasn't Jewish, although I was too young to even know what that meant. (I've since converted to Judaism, ironically.) I also remember Mrs. Genitis for French, Mrs. Stone, and I think I had Mrs. Reid too for kindergarten--I'll have to check my class pictures which are stored away somewhere. Anyway thanks for the memories!
Posted by: Richard Jacobson | April 26, 2010 at 03:45 PM
Danny! Thank you so much for this walk down memory lane. I found your blog through Frances Archer's Me & My Shadow Blog-another wonderful recollection of our school & neighborhoods.
My father came to America from Sweden at the age of 12 and was enrolled at Peterson, not speaking a word of English. The school was brand new and he was in the first graduating class. He would be 101 years old now!
I also had Miss Reid & Miss Genetis (she hated me). I graduated in 1966 & went on to Von Steuben.
Through Facebook, I have reunited with dozens of classmates.
Posted by: Mary Hagberg Meyer | May 16, 2011 at 06:50 AM
Thanks for the memories...... Bonnie Liss Class of 1966
Posted by: Bonnie Liss Hanna | May 16, 2011 at 06:53 AM