Fortunately, Mr. Field had us play "the map game" in sixth grade - one kid on either side of the map and he would say a country or a place and the first one to get it was the winner, and got to keep going till someone beat them (I was never beaten). Kids spent all kinds of extra time learning the map. He was the only one I could remember…
Fortunately, Mr. Field had us play "the map game" in sixth grade - one kid on either side of the map and he would say a country or a place and the first one to get it was the winner, and got to keep going till someone beat them (I was never beaten). Kids spent all kinds of extra time learning the map. He was the only one I could remember from 12 years of public school, and fortunately we got to be friends the past ten years before he died last summer at 99.
I also played a version of this game in Mr. Delponte's 6th grade class. Can't say I was never beaten, but it did turn me into a sort of map freak, with a concomitant interest in world affairs.
Teachers like that made all the difference back then. I had a 7th grade teacher, Mr. MacAleney, who paid for each of us to have the newspaper every day in class and every day we would all do the crossword puzzle together. I ran into him many years later and thanked him and told him he was the best teacher I ever had. I thought he was going to cry. I wonder if teachers are "allowed" to do things like that anymore.
My Mom had the dubious "honor" of being assigned to teach the "Package Nine" English class her second year of teaching. That was also known as "last chance English" and was packed with seniors who needed to pass the class in order to graduate. Mom taught them to read Middle English, and read Chaucer in the original. They ate it up, and for the first time in the history of "Package Nine" ALL of the seniors passed and graduated.
Those kids came to visit her after she quit teaching for 20 years (before moving out of the Rogue Valley). Two of them came to her memorial service 30 years after she quit.
Fortunately, Mr. Field had us play "the map game" in sixth grade - one kid on either side of the map and he would say a country or a place and the first one to get it was the winner, and got to keep going till someone beat them (I was never beaten). Kids spent all kinds of extra time learning the map. He was the only one I could remember from 12 years of public school, and fortunately we got to be friends the past ten years before he died last summer at 99.
I also played a version of this game in Mr. Delponte's 6th grade class. Can't say I was never beaten, but it did turn me into a sort of map freak, with a concomitant interest in world affairs.
A legacy that lives on, past his passing.
Teachers like that made all the difference back then. I had a 7th grade teacher, Mr. MacAleney, who paid for each of us to have the newspaper every day in class and every day we would all do the crossword puzzle together. I ran into him many years later and thanked him and told him he was the best teacher I ever had. I thought he was going to cry. I wonder if teachers are "allowed" to do things like that anymore.
My Mom had the dubious "honor" of being assigned to teach the "Package Nine" English class her second year of teaching. That was also known as "last chance English" and was packed with seniors who needed to pass the class in order to graduate. Mom taught them to read Middle English, and read Chaucer in the original. They ate it up, and for the first time in the history of "Package Nine" ALL of the seniors passed and graduated.
Those kids came to visit her after she quit teaching for 20 years (before moving out of the Rogue Valley). Two of them came to her memorial service 30 years after she quit.
TC, how did you do with African countries?