By Mary Tobia

I have a new title. I am a learning coach one day a week for our little kindergarten grandchild. His learning takes place virtually on a computer. He has subjects such as language, math, practical life, sensorial life, visual arts, cultural studies, music and movement arts, social science and Spanish.

As a learning coach my duties are to create and manage the school routine. To assist and instruct the student. To also communicate with the cyber schoolteachers.

He is a smart fellow with a desire to learn, so he took to all these subjects with adventure and speed, which left me rereading or just scratching my head thinking; is this what they are learning in kindergarten these days?

As I think back 60 some year ago when I first went to school in South Dakota, it was a one-room schoolhouse where one teacher would be teaching grades 1-8 with real books, a ruler and a chalkboard wall behind her. She taught all subjects including music and art.

In those weeks of kindergarten, we needed to learn how to sit still, raise our hand to talk and know our name.

My memories of kindergarten are few, but I remember it as fun and I liked my teacher. I am sure I was not reading, doing math skills, or learning to speak another language back then.

I recently found an example of what a report card from 1957 was like. I got a chuckle; I hope you do too.

Things the student needs to know: colors, which was their right hand, address, father’s name, days of the week, the four seasons and know how to tell pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, half dollars and dollars apart.

Reading readiness: read their name, write just their first name, count to 50, use books the right way, sit quietly to stories and know how to recite a nursery rhyme.

Music grading was on knowing how to skip, do what the music asked and listen nicely to records.

Activities included could the student work with clay or draw, color or paint on a piece of paper. Could the child paint, cut with a scissors, build something with building blocks, play nicely in the sand? Could they plant seeds, and did they have any cooking experience, and could they sew a button on a shirt?

The kindergartner’s personal habits were graded also. Did they come to school clean? Did the student keep their fingernails clean, could they take off and put on their coat and also hang it up properly? Could they tie their shoes? Students were also graded on being polite, kind to others and helping other children when they needed it, had to take turns, play carefully with the toys and materials. Lastly, they had to eat nicely.

All of the categories were listed on one page and the teacher would give a check mark alongside the task that the child had accomplished.

I do not believe the kindergarten kids in the 1950s were less smart or less capable than the kids of today. It was just the expectations we faced back then were way simpler.

I am kind of thinking though, I might need to incorporate sewing a button on a shirt in between Spanish and cultural studies next week when Luca and I have class.