when I was in grade 3

When I was in Grade Three

My daughter is in grade three and doing work that I do not remember doing until grade four, grade six, or Humber College. She says that every time the class is asked to do something the teacher also reminds them that it will be on the grade three test.

When I was in grade three, we stood up to sing O Canada followed by the Lord’s Prayer. Then we sat down and our teacher read to us from the Bible. When my (Jewish) mother called the school to inquire as to why her daughter was being read Bible stories in a public school, the principle responded by saying the teacher only planned to read from the Old Testament.

Then, after the Bible story, because we ought to be tired from that much sitting, we stood up again to sing a song with actions such as If You’re Happy and You Know It, Did You Ever See a Lassie, or a religious version of Father Abraham.

For a while, in grade three, we were doing a unit on eggs. The teacher brought in an egg that looked like a chicken’s egg, only larger. She asked if anyone knew what it was, and someone volunteered that it was a rooster’s egg, to which the teacher only said “no.” As it turned out, it was a turkey’s egg.

It was also in grade three that we began drug education. We got a sheet of paper with pictures of children slightly older than us using different drugs. Some kids in my class got together and made a skit based on the information sheet. They pretended to be a group of friends in which one member of the group ventured into drug use. He pretended to smoke a drinking straw as if it were a cigarette as the other members of the group attempted to talk him out of it. Soon the drinking straw was no longer a cigarette but a joint. Eventually, he proceeded to stick the same straw up his nose. “Is that supposed to be cocaine?” our teacher asked. All of the actors nodded.

When I was in grade three, there was no grade three test. Had there been, I find myself wondering what would have been on it.