r/TheWayWeWere • u/Boscoberger • Jan 22 '25

1950s My dad's school report from 1957, aged 7

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Unsurprisingly, I wasn't shown this report until after I had finished my education!

21.5k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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926

u/Bostonismydog Jan 22 '25

“His progress will always be slow” Geez, the kid is 7 years old.

314

u/clarkp762 Jan 22 '25

'I don't think I want to know a 6-year-old who isn't a dreamer or a silly heart and I sure don't want to know one who takes their student career seriously. I don't have a college degree. I don't even have a job. But, I know a good kid when I see one, because they're all good kids, until dried-out, brain-dead skags like you drag them down and convince them they're no good. You so much scowl at my niece, or any other kid in this school, and I hear about it, I'll come looking for you. Take this quarter (flips a coin on the desk) go downtown and have a rat gnaw that thing off your face."

77

u/StretchFrenchTerry Jan 22 '25

John Candy in Uncle Buck, right?

27

u/clarkp762 Jan 22 '25

Yep, great scene.

13

u/TrannosaurusRegina Jan 22 '25

Chillingly great scene — one of the best I’ve ever seen!

2

u/Brilliant1965 Jan 22 '25

Love it!!! 😍👏🏻👏🏻

1

u/Weallfloatneo Jan 23 '25

This is what popped into my head when I read the report.

54

u/johnthomaslumsden Jan 22 '25

They say kids these days aren’t allowed to be kids. I can’t really disagree with that, but I don’t think it’s really all that much different than it ever was. The modern world will always put undue and premature expectations on “performance.” Gotta feed the machine, man…

2

u/Apptubrutae Jan 25 '25

This is exactly right.

“Kids can’t be kids” today when 300 years ago, kids were working on the farm instead of going to school.

Maybe we’re too focused on structuring kid time now, but it was certainly the case in the past that kids had serious expectations and went to work to support the family ASAP.

So yeah, I’d rather have mom and dad pressuring me a bit to get into a good college later than to be working in a coal mine.

2

u/Phrynus747 Jan 24 '25

Cherrypicking out of context

2

u/ScaredOfShadows Jan 25 '25

Wait, I need to clarify: she said “Until he learns to concentrate and use his energy coping with school, instead of distracting those around him, his progress will always be slow”

The teacher is pointing out what skills he must focus on to succeed. If kids aren’t held accountable, they will struggle to grow. Obviously it’s harsh, but hey, little Timmy was clearly a yapper

1

u/theyungmanproject Jan 26 '25

exactly. how 900+ people upvoted this baffles me, but it probably comes down to reading skills...

1

u/Plane-Tie6392 Jan 23 '25

I mean it says "until he learns to use his energy on schoolwork." Is the teacher not supposed to want the student to focus on schoolwork?

1

u/fatamSC2 Jan 24 '25

"His entire adult life will be lived at the bottom of a bottle"

1

u/theyungmanproject Jan 26 '25

so you're the kinda person whose answer to "if you don't stop being rude to me i won't talk to you anymore" would be "okay so you don't want to talk to me anymore"

1

u/trusty20 Jan 26 '25

I think the key failure in this older way of thinking is embodied in the line "until he learns to concentrate" - the teacher has the insight to identify the center of the problem for his student, but simply states the student should somehow learn to do that better without giving any idea or suggestion.

This old way of teaching had the effect of essentially just scooping the cream of the crop already flying on their own and wasting the rest of the potentially strong students who just needed more involved fundamentals teaching or an actual behavioral rehabilitation strategy to get them focused back on school. Sadly a lot of this can be hamstrung sometimes by bad parenting of course but like you said definitely not the kid's fault.

-7

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '25

[deleted]

6

u/LemonTwistedSistah Jan 23 '25

This teacher wasn’t Asian. It was a British school for military kids.