My School Years in Romania (VI)

Third grade (getting First Prize)

You became a pioneer in third grade if you had good grades. It was vaguely political, we had to promise to respect and abide the rules of communism, but to us, it was just words. During a school year, we had our own classroom. Al subjects would be taught in that space with few exceptions (gym, of course was out or in the gym room).
Each class had its own register and the teachers would get it from the teachers' lounge and take it to the particular class they were teaching. Some teachers would call the roll every time and marked who was absent. Usually students were present. Only in extreme circumstances, a parent's note would explain why the child was not present.
The teacher would single you out (or a few others too), ask you to stand up or come to the front of the room in front of everybody and then she or he would ask you questions. Or you could be required to speak freely about a subject that he/she indicated for 5-10 minutes. Or you could be required to write sentences, solve some math problems, etc. on the huge blackboard at the front on the class. That is where the teacher's desk was too. He/She might call only one person at a time to the front while the others were fretting at their desks not knowing whose turn might be next and who might be called to continue what the one in front was doing.
The pressure to do well and not become the laughing stock of colleagues kept us in line and we endeavored to learn and do our homework. And after we performed our part in front of our colleagues, we received our grade for that specific performance. The grade was not secret. Everybody knew about everybody else. Some students, trying their hand at being teachers, also graded their colleagues (privately) and then compared the grades they gave, to the teacher's official grades.
When you got a grade, the teacher would carefully write it down in the huge re­gister of the class under your name and parti­cular subject. The student would be required to present his/her personal grade book and the teacher would inscribe the date, subject and grade. The teacher would then sign it. There was another column for the parent's signature. The student was required to show that the parent had seen the grade and signed. This way, the parent knew right away how the student was doing in each particular subject. There was space in the student's book for notes to the parents. If the child misbehaved, there was no time out or any such thing. A note was written to the parent and the child would have a talk with his/her parent. The following day, the child had to bring the signature of the parent on the student's grade book. I remember that in first or second grade, my friend and deskmate had finished our work sooner and we proceeded to amuse ourselves with I don't know what. We laughed harder and harder until we fell under the desk. We both got notes to take to the parents. In the event of a more serious misdeed, the student would be sent to the principal's office. This was so dreaded that it practically never happened.
Each class had its own "Diriginte", main teacher (home teacher). Every week there was one period when we had the "Dirigentie" class. This could be about anything. It was mostly administrative, and feedback. The Diriginte might also talk about health issues, human relations, etc. The Diriginte would periodically have conferences with parents. The meetings were with all pa­rents present at the same time. The parents would sit in their own children's seats and the teacher would discuss everybody's concern in front of everybody else. Everything was very open. And surprisingly, there did not seem to be any resentment that some child was doing better or worse than another. I have a feeling that the parents were being motivated to try to stimulate their children to do better, by these open conferences. All pa­rents participated to the meetings. It was a kind of social event in which they got to meet one another. (to be continued)

Simona Georgescu