My School Years in Romania (I)

For those of you who are in school, have school age children, are teachers yourselves, or simply, would like to know more about Romania, here it is: a description of what schooling used to be when I was in the system. To give you an idea, I started First Grade in 1961. Some things have changed in the meantime, but not everything. Later on, I will try to convince a friend of mine who is a schoolteacher in Romania to give you her view of schooling nowadays. Now, as a person who has lived in the United States for many, many years, and who now has school age children, I can draw comparisons between the two systems, and between Then and Now. And according to my own evaluation, there are quite a few things that were done better when I was in school.
Aside from the oppressive political system in those days, the education was pretty good. In fact, I think that policymakers in this country could adopt some of the ideas from the educational system that I am writing about here.

Before Grade School

You had to be at least 7 years old to be able to enroll in first grade. Before that, you could stay at home, do nothing, learn a few things from your parents if they were inclined to teach you something or you could go to a state run pre-school. You could basically go to pre-school at the age of 4. At the pre-school where I went, there were three levels, the “Little Ones”, the “In-Betweens” and the “Big Ones”. Certain skills were taught at each level. For instance, I remember that we were required to learn to tie shoelaces in order to promoted from the Intermediate level to the Advanced one. Well, I thought I could trick my teacher and went to her with a perfect knot (done by somebody else). She made me untie it and then tie it back in front of her. Of course, I was sent back to “study” some more. We had music, art lessons; we were encouraged to get creative. At the end of the year, we had recitals with singing, dancing, poems, etc. We wore beautiful costumes and were proud if we were selected for a solo number. Children were encouraged to resolve disputes by themselves. I was very skinny and children were pushing me around. When my parents complained to the teachers, the response was “We generally do not get involved except in extreme circumstances. If you child is being pushed, she should push back.” As simple as that. That did not lead to any violence either. Walking alone to and from school was no problem even at that age. (to be continued)

Simona Georgescu