Sixty years ago today, I started school.
We got a big School Cone and were very excited. I was lucky enough to like the entire 13 years (and subsequently spent 87 semesters in one university, first studying, then working).
In our rural elementary school, we 5 boys and 3 girls shared the room with three other classes. Each year, we moved to benches farther away from the windows and closer to the wall on the right, so my memories are all associated with a certain angle of view. And also with a different layout of our slates: the auxiliary lines for ascender and descender gradually disappeared.
We wrote with slate and stylus for all the four years, and it was easy to wipe out any errors with just a fingertip, and so I did not have to be afraid of the tasks. The following years with pen and paper were much harder — until finally the computer gave me back the support for incremental working.
It was never boring because, when I was done with a silent task, I would listen to our Mr. Teacher talking to the other classes to the left or even to the right. We had plenty of silent tasks for independent work which, for me, was beneficial.
Education was a pleasant thing, and knowledge did not yet appear as an asset and an object for greed and competition.
