This would have happened in the late 1950s, just after my fifth grade year at Andrew Carnegie Elementary School, in Tulsa, Oklahoma . I loved it there–the school, my friends, the town, the ranches surrounding our suburban subdivision–it was just the ideal place for a boy to grow up.
Carnegie was a “pilot school,” one set up to try out new educational initiatives, and most of them really worked for the students there. For example, from the second grade on, we changed classes. The classes of children stayed together throughout the day, but we moved from room to room and from teacher to teacher. The advantage to us was that when we were in, say, Science class, we had a Science teacher, not some nice lady who really wished she understood Science a little better. The Art teacher, for example, was actually able to get me to produce some attractive works–something that never happened before or since–just by providing the materials and environment that put success within the students’ grasp. It still is a great school, apparently–all these years later.