I’ve written about my early school years. See here and here and here. By the time I reached fifth grade, I’d been there since the start of second grade, and I was likely to remain there through eighth grade. I knew where I stood.
I’d survived the double names of fourth grade, and I spent much of fifth grade teaching my classmates to drop the Mary and just call me Theresa. I handled classwork just fine, though my handwriting wasn’t the neatest. I was lousy in P.E. I wasn’t popular, but I wasn’t ostracized either. Other than these generalities of childhood, fifth grade was mostly a blur. Though I can still picture my teacher.
Christ the King, the Catholic school I attended, opened in 1955 with two classrooms in every grade from first through eighth. I don’t know how many nuns taught in the school originally, but when I started fifth grade in 1965, there were religious teachers in both first grade classrooms and in both seventh and eighth grade classrooms. There was a sister who served as principal, and another who taught music. But Grades 2 through 6 each had one nun and one lay teacher. Most students had a nun one year and a lay teacher the next. I’d had a nun in the fourth grade, so my teacher in fifth grade was Mrs. Murphy.
The front of the school. The brick is the same, but the windows are new. 
The only part of the back that looks familiar is the building on the left — cafeteria with gym above it.
Mrs. Murphy was a large Irish widow who could be just as gruff as the nuns. She had a daughter who I think was a year behind me in school. There were over forty kids in my class, but Mrs. Murphy managed them well. I don’t recall any disciplinary problems, as there had been with the lay teacher I had in third grade, who had been brand new at teaching and didn’t know how to handle the fifty kids in her class. And who was rumored to wear a bikini.
The only specific incident I recall from fifth grade was when my grandfather died in January 1966. My siblings and I stayed with family friends while my parents flew to California for his funeral. My mother had arranged for someone to drive my brother and me to Christ the King (my brother was in third grade that year), and we went about our school days as if nothing had changed.
A couple of weeks later, Mrs. Murphy found out that my grandfather had died. I don’t know who told her. “Why didn’t you say anything, Theresa?” she asked. “We could have prayed for your grandfather and the rest of your family.”
It hadn’t occurred to me to tell her about it. I guess I didn’t want any attention. Those were the years when flying under the radar at school seemed the smartest approach. But I think my grandfather got a belated prayer from my fifth grade class.
What do you remember about being the center of attention at school?
My fifth-grade teacher’s name was Mrs. Vogue. Mature, tall, pretty, and blonde, Mrs. Vogue had super-long fingernails which she could hook around your shoulder if she wanted to make an “impression”. But I’ll never forget the day I sneaked a peak at my best friend’s test paper. Mrs. Vogue came over without a word, took my test paper, shredded it with her hands, and quietly told me I would receive an F for that test for cheating. I never cheated again. Thanks, Mrs. Vogue!
Ha! That’s the kind of attention you don’t want! Thanks for commenting,
Theresa
I wore jumpers with headbands like that frequently. My dad was a junior high science teacher and I went to the same school. I got the usual teasing of being the teacher’s pet in any chemistry & biology classes. But I have fond memories of going with my dad and brothers to his classroom on the weekends. While he graded papers and prepared lessons, we would run the hallways and shoot baskets in the gym. The science dept. kept an iguana named Lizzie and we loved to let her out of the cage.
Cindy, as a child I hardly ever went to my dad’s place of work. But I took my kids to my office on weekends all the time. As little kids, they liked to run the copy machine and play Tetris on an unused computer. But as they grew older, they hated it. My daughter (now in her 30s) still complains.
I’m glad you enjoyed your dad’s office more than my kids did mine.
Theresa