Paula Clark of Russellville has taught school for 30 years, most of them at Butler County High School. At the end of each school year, however, she recalls students’ final days at Prospect Hill School in Simpson County when she was a little girl. She is married to Ray Clark.
At Prospect Hill in Simpson County, open windows helped herald in spring and the end of the school year. While finishing those final lessons, students inhaled the scents of spring--freshly mown grass and flowering bushes. Occasionally, a stray bee buzzed in and created a little excitement.
At recess, students pulled baseball mitts and bats from underneath their desks or from. classroom lockers. The fifth and sixth graders always had an end-of-the-year baseball game. Of course, it was tradition for the sixth graders to win. While the boys pretended to be great baseball stars, the girls would sit in the grass and hunt for four-leaf clovers or make white clover chains to wear around their necks. Some watched intently as their "boyfriends" slid into home plate or caught a pop-up fly; others discussed 4-H camp, Barbies, hope chests, or summer vacations. Third and fourth graders competed in kickball while the first graders got an extra few minutes to jump rope, swing, and seesaw.
Sometimes, teachers would extend recess because the afternoon heat caused the classrooms to become too warm for serious study. The only air-conditioned classrooms were trailers that housed an extra second grade class. music or remedial reading. Sometimes, the kitchen staff would prepare an orange juice break, and teachers gave another short recess to shorten the afternoon.
Teachers would return math and reading workbooks. The first graders received their readers where in their imagination they had romped with Alice, Jerry and their dog Jip. Sixth graders gave their final farewell to their country school; no longer would they be in classes with the same classmates they had known since they walked through the doors as timid first graders.
The district always had the last day as a half day. Students would receive their report cards, gather books, art projects, and worksheets to be placed in their mother's scrapbooks. Some who rode the busses home often received a cold drink and a candy bar--a thank you for their best bus behavior.
In those days, parents used the report card as the measurement of their child's success, and on that report card’s back was the most important statement: Your child is retained or promoted. The county gave achievement tests, but scores didn't seem to be important like they are today.
From that school came realtors, insurance agents, teachers, a doctor, a veterinarian, successful farmers, soldiers, a radiology technician, a nurse, a legal secretary, a lawyer and judge, factory workers, a florist, a computer analyst, musicians--many more but my memory fails. As a state, we speak of the Common Core, seat time, and college and career readiness.
As educators, we spend every spare moment educating students-- even down to the last day. But at Prospect Hill, those last days before summer created memories for many a rural kid.