Stone Soup by Jan Eliot for September 16, 2009

one of the high schools near me started putting the problem kids in classes that started at noon and all of the kids improved by at least a point in their GPA.

I wonder if an hour of detention after school for a week might and no more cell phone might get her on the right track.

Back when I was in elementary school, cell phones were still in their infancy…and were then a luxary.

When I was in elementary school, dial phones were in their infancy and you gave your number to the operator. Am I old or am I old!

Hand crank phones and party lines. Long and short rings. Every one on the line at the same time. No secrets.

Yep! — I remember having to ASK the operator for ENterprise-245.

(THAT, friends, is OLD!)

Midnight? On school nights, I was told to hit sack by 22:00 all the way to 12th grade.

Val’s got you there Holly–you need to do your HW early (see Calvin for pointers), then you will be able to hit sack early–problem easy to solve!

Good grief Val, doesn’t she have an official bedtime? My bedtime was 9:00 until 6th grade and 10:00 after that. Only for something special was I allowed to stay up til 11:00 on a school night.

King Rat, how late did the kids who started at noon have to stay? Til around 7:00 or 8:00 PM??

I read suggestions that they delay the school day for teenagers because they need more sleep. Would you make that suggestion to my boss? The tonight show is so addictive. Perhaps I could get government help.

It was a shame they had to get rid of the old exchange names, the FIresides, TUxedos, CEntrals, WEsterns, BRoadways…..the list goes on and on, a completely different age.

(And, of course, the very famous “PEnnsylvania 6-5000)

when l was elementary school gleems hadn’t been invented :O)

When I was in gradeschool we had partlines and dialup like wh3 so forth. My mom who is 84 can still remember the old phone #’s. No cell phones either. Bedtime 9pm was hard but gradeschool started at 9am ended at 4pm.

WO3-4194

The number we had fifty years ago in SImpsonville SC - on a four-place party line. From Home Telephone Co of Simpsonville.

Until I was 18 my bedtime was nine o’clock on weekdays and 10oclock on weekends. I didn’t mind too much as I had 0 period and had to be up by 5am.

Starting school late for some kids is a great idea. I had to problems waking up at 6:30 to go to school at 8:00 but my sister wasn’t like me. She couldn’t (not wouldn’t, our bedtime was 9:30 until we graduated) get to sleep until well after midnight and really struggled to pay attention to the first couple of classes at school. I’m not surprised that there are more kids like her who could benefit from a late school day, even if it means staying in class till 5:00 (our school let out at 2:30 PM, so a later schedule of 10:00/11:00 to 4 or 5 PM should work).