Accolades To My Third Grade Teacher

My third grade teacher, Mrs. Esther Gilchrist, was picky about manners. We had personal hygiene checks. She checked our fingernails once a week and required us to fill out a chart about brushing our teeth. I think I lied on it.

If anyone’s finger got close to their nose, Mrs. Gilchrist would say the student’s name, tap her nose, shake her head, and say, “No-no.” 

Only a certain number of people could be walking around the room at a time. If we were in the library area, we squatted down. That way someone else could get up to turn in a paper or go the mathematics table. At times we looked like a bunch of Jack in the Boxes when she was busy with a reading group.

Why were we walking around during class anyway? Now that I think of it, Mrs. Gilchrist trusted us. She gave us a lot of freedom for being 8-year-olds. Here’s a rundown.

Me, in 3rd grade. I look ornery.

During work time, if we had to go to the restroom, I don't remember having to ask her—maybe because she was busy with a reading group. We signed a piece of paper taped to the back of her desk. I think we missed part of recess then.

We never ever sat in rows. Our desks were arranged in teams of four or six. Facing each other. 

Nobody sat in teams in 1975! Mrs. Gilchrist was before her time. I love that.
 
In the fall, our desks were arranged in a big square around a huge map of the town. I accidentally spilled milk on it during our cracker and milk break.

Mrs. Gilchrist was so gracious to me. I ruined part of it, but she knew I didn't do it on purpose. I don't remember if she let me have my snack at my desk anymore—wouldn't blame her if she placed me off to the side.

That map confused me too because I didn't know Hitchcock. I was a farm kid who’d never walked the streets of the town. I had a vague idea what a block was, but when we went to collect leaves, I was rather intimidated—my classmates seemed to know exactly where they were going, but I didn’t.

Up near the front of Mrs. Gilchrist’s classroom was a long table with a few record players and headphones. We'd listen to multiplication songs. We worked at our own pace memorizing and then quizzed out when we were ready to move on. Individual learning plan of sorts, I’d say—in the 70s, mind you—in rural South Dakota.

Like I said, Mrs. Gilchrist was ahead of her time.

Class of 1984 as 3rd graders at Hitchcock Elementary

It was in third grade math that I learned a trick. For 8+7 equaling 15, she taught us to think 7+7=14 +1 equals 15. To this day, that is how I figure out 8+7. I do a similar thing with 8+9. Those two answers aren't automatic for me. I do that trick every time when I’m adding in my head. Wonder if anyone else from the Class of 1984 does that. 

In 1974-75 school year, our classroom teachers also taught physical education. Mrs. Gilchrist had two long poles that we’d hold six to eight inches off the floor and then snap together in various rhythms that she taught us. Another set of students would do some sort of hopping maneuver through the poles.

I don't remember her demonstrating this, for she was an elegant lady who reminded me of Mrs. Howell on "Gilligan's Island," but she must have shown us. YouTube didn’t exist and a reeled movie was treat. 

This was the year we started going to the multi-purpose room for music. That’s where I took clarinet lessons a few years later from Mr. Wiens—read about the time he showed up at my house by clicking here. This was the huge room where Mrs. Gilchrist taught us to square dance.

Growing up Mennonite Brethren, we didn't dance, but Mom and Dad had no problem with me learning to square dance. I’d secretly hoped they'd say I couldn't do it, for we had to dance with the boys. Wasn't quite my thing—even though third grade was the year I married Jeff Waldner out by the cottonwood trees at recess. Anybody else have a grade school marriage?

Had you asked me as a child or a high school student if Mrs. Gilchrist was one of my favorite teachers, I’d have said, “No way!” She was too prim and proper. Too picky. Too lady-like. Too soft-spoken. Yes, I prefer boisterous teachers. Does that surprise anyone?

But now as an adult and a teacher myself, I see her in a more positive light. She had a way of engaging us in the course work. She insisted on neatness and order. She certainly knew her subject matter and beyond. She presented lessons with a mixture of traditional paper/pencil, hands-on activities, and technology. 

Maybe I am kind of like her. Minus the prim and proper because I teach middle school—we are far from proper. 

Because of Mrs. Gilchrist, I know the four food groups (this was before the food pyramid) which we charted on the chalkboard each day after noon recess. I know my cardinal directions, can write in cursive (although it sloppy now), and can function within a group. I understand arithmetic but am still waiting for the metric system to be fully adopted into American society like she said it would.

Mrs. Gilchrist

I look at her picture now, the one she gave me when I was her student. I see a pretty lady. Hair just so, straight teeth, lovely clothing, and hardly any make-up. She really was a beauty. Just as beautiful on the inside too in the way she dealt with me.

May she somehow know that this little girl really is sorry for writing Todd Tollefson a note asking him if he farted. I was pulled in the hallway and told, “Young ladies don’t talk like that. I’m really disappointed in you, Melodie.”

She had every right to call me out on that.

It’s a good thing though, that she didn’t see me place my hand flat on my desk and bend under all my fingers but one. Third grade was the year I figured out what the middle finger meant. I may not have been able to maneuver a city block, but I knew what the cows and the bulls were doing on the farm. I made the connection one day to the middle finger and realized it all.

Stunned. Grossed out. Looked at adults in a completely different way. Didn’t like that I knew that. I probably asked my best friend Gail, two years older, if I was right. Read more about Gail here.

This was also the year that Gail and I, along with the high school girls we copied, got in trouble for writing on the school bus seats—in ink pen. Mrs. Gilchrist never said a word to me about it. She must have known I was already embarrassed when Superintendent Dale Schneider called me out of her class one morning to go scrub the seats with Comet. Read more about Mr. Schneider by clicking here.

Third grade was a lot of firsts. I got glasses, started piano lessons, and was allowed to spend the night at a friend’s house. I got my own Bible too. Looks like I needed that considering my fart-word use (my dad still forbids the use of that word; read where I learned the word here), vandalism, and discovery of the meaning of the f-word.

Thank you, Mrs. Gilchrist, for being one of the many who molded me.


Which teacher was in your life during your biggest times of discovery and mischief? What educator have you changed your mind about as the years have passed?

Jump Balls & Four Corner Delay Game

Between Spring, Summer, Winter, and Fall, I used to say my favorite season was basketball. And basketball was my spouse.

I fell in love with the sport in 1978—back when jump balls occurred at every tie-up. The set-ups often looked funny if a tall player jumped against the feisty guard, but you jolly green giants should not have brought the ball down for us pesky rat terriers to grab it.

The first basketball team I ever played on. I was in 7th grade.
I'm number 33 standing by Coach Ruth Hausemann.
Tinted glass were in style.

I know I am in the minority, but I wish we still had jump balls. That possession arrow determines the winner in close games, and shouldn't the defense have a chance at getting the ball back if the offense didn't take care of it?

Our superintendent, Dale Schneider, a member of the South Dakota Activities Association in the 70s and 80s, would ask us thought provoking questions like that during government class. I could never tell which side of the question he was on.

A change I did like was the smaller ball. It came out during my junior year in high school and helped me shoot and dribble better. I also remember experiments with a shot clock. Didn't like that one bit.

I still do not like watching games with a shot clock. It eliminates the stalling tactic, yes, but it put a new spin on the game delay tactic that I liked. Sure, some coaches, unethical in my opinion, would run a delay game when they were way ahead. But when it was a nail biter, shouldn't the better ball handling team or the well-oiled delay game team win? Isn't that part of the strategy?

I know, some of you are like my mom used to be. She hated how the offensive guards would put on a clinic as the defensive guards darted back and forth hoping for a steal. But oh, when their persistence paid off with a steal and a bucket—what a game! Besides, to be a guard, one needs to be little bit of a show-off, don't you think?

Running a delay game is a big risk. And every basketball fan from South Dakota in the late 70s to early 80s will remember when the Huron College Tribe ran one. The college was only thirty minutes from our farm, so Dad and I went to many of their games.

picture from South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame

Eddie Boyd, Mel Smith, Spinkle, and Coach Bruce Carrier were household names in east central South Dakota. Sprinkle would tick off Carrier so bad he'd get sent to the showers in the first half, sit at the end of the bench in street clothes, but then after half-time, Sprinkle would be back in his jersey playing. Rumor had it some of the little old ladies in town attended games just to yell at Carrier. 

And boy did he get criticized for his delay game tactic in the NAIA playoffs one year. Our teachers let us listen to the play-by-play on the radio during school, but I believe this particular game was in the evening, so we listened at home.

The Tribe literally stalled the entire second half. One player stood in the corner of the court and held the ball. It didn't even pass the hashmark (not a Twitter term). That rule wasn't in place yet. They wanted the last shot of the game to win it, but they flubbed. I can't remember all the details of it except that it was another one of Carrier's controversial coaching maneuvers. It would be interesting to know whatever became of him and his players.


What experience do you have with the old jump ball rule or the four-corner delay tactic? And for my South Dakota readers, what's your favorite Huron Tribe memory?