School orientations here in Caldwell County begin today. Students and parents visit classrooms, meet teachers.

1940's, there was no such thing. Students rode the bus, met the teacher on the first day, no parents involved. Actually there was no need for orientation at Burke County's Pilot Mountain School. There were only four teachers and six grades and with that little choice, students knew who their teachers would be. In many cases, they had them the previous year. First graders were kept together with one teacher, but the other classes were combinations, two grades together, and no such thing as kindergarten, not in 1940's public school North Carolina. That would come decades later.

First graders did have an orientation of sorts but it wasn't a preschool screening as in this diagnostic day and age. Instead the incoming first grade students came to school with their older brothers, sisters, cousins or neighbors the last week of school in May. Just a glimpse of what life would be like. No parents involved.

Would that work now? Catch of the day,

Gretchen