 |
She did that herself, if you want to buy this piece it’s for
sale for $8000.
|
Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh that’s right, nothing
yet. My very real girlfriend and I were recently comparing our elementary
school experiences and we found some startling discrepancies. Let’s see if you
guys can figure out which one of us went to school in the hood. I’ll throw in a
disclaimer: these come with about 10 years of memory rust, and “the hood” was neither
dangerous nor scary, it was just…well you’ll see.
When my girlfriend’s third grade teacher decided to take her
class on a field trip, she took them to the IMAX theater downtown. Nowadays
IMAX screens are commonplace; you’ve probably seen one at your local cinema.
But circa 2001, IMAX was a big deal, especially for kids. The opportunity to
watch dinosaurs and race cars come to life on a giant 3D canvas was enough to
make us lose our marbles. So that’s exactly what they did: they took her and
her classmates on a bus downtown to the IMAX and they had a grand old time. Many marbles were lost that day.
Now I’m not trying to say my teachers were bad, cause they
had their hearts in the right place. When my third grade teacher wanted to take
us on a field trip, she did too. To McDonalds. We hopped on a bus, who knows,
maybe the same bus my girlfriend went to IMAX in, but instead of driving to
dinosaurs and race cars and adventure, we drove straight to the belly of obesity.
I have to say I was confused, even at my young age. I thought we were at least
going to learn how a kitchen worked in the fast food world, but they didn’t
even let us go in the kitchen. We just sat in the booths and the manager talked
to us and we learned nothing about dinosaurs.
 |
Pictured: Not dinosaurs. |
Well I’ll be fair, I got the IMAX trip too. But a bus for
that one? Too easy. My teacher, school administrator, principal, and whoever
else was in charge decided it was acceptable for our third grade class to walk
a mile and a half, single file, through the hood, past the local liquor store
to get to the light rail station. It’s a good thing our chaperone count stood
at a staggering one: the teacher. Leading us from the front. At least the light
rail ride was fun, if you disregard the odor.
Maybe that’s too specific of an example though, I mean you
can’t expect two schools’ field trips to be exactly the same. (“True that”, my
girlfriend says. See guys she’s REAL I swear) Let’s see what else there is…
When my girlfriend’s PE class would get rained out, her
teacher would bring the kids in for a jolly old round of board games, and
Mancala. A lot of Mancala, apparently.
 |
Which is this, apparently. |
When my PE class got rained out we did laps around the
inside of the cafeteria. We made sure to say hi to the lunch lady when we
passed her.
Speaking of rain, when it rained during lunch at my school,
OH BOY I hope you liked the movie they played in the cafeteria to keep kids
quiet. If we were loud? No more talking for the rest of lunch, for any of us.
They’d lock us in.
Well what did my girlfriend read about in school? As she
claims, “We read stories about diversity…I liked them, they were colorful” See,
she learned lessons about people getting along and creating better communities.
At my school we read bittersweet tales about underprivileged
minorities struggling with everyday life. We learned that, even if we tried to
get along…that doesn’t always happen. Or ever happen, it seemed. I was, and
still am, amazed at how few happy endings there were. I think at such a young
age it came off less like a lesson of diversity and more like a message to be
nice to minorities because otherwise they are doomed in life.
My girlfriend went to the computer lab once a week.
I went once a month.
At my girlfriend’s library they read and checked out books.
At my library we organized them.
They made us organize the library.
My girlfriend got free bookmarks.
I got child labor.
Did I mention these are in the same school district, 15 miles away from each other? No? Well they're in the same school district, 15 miles away from each other.
 |
I don't know how to end this post so here's the first Google image result for "IMAX Dinosaurs" |
