Continuing my new “series” of family snapshots, here’s another from from my mother-in-law’s photo albums, a picture of her 2nd grade (?) class. This image, which as you can see is a bit worse for wear, was taken in 1954 when she was 8 years old (my mother-in-law is in the first standing row, far right). It’s a tiny tiny picture, hardly bigger than a postage stamp and smaller than the “sweet” picture I posted a few days ago. As I mentioned in that post, my mother-in-law has an excellent memory of names and predictably she could name just about every student in this picture. But what she remembered most was the teacher (first standing row, far left). The teacher would walk up and down the classroom carrying some sort of whipping stick, and if a student talked out of turn or in some way misbehaved (in her eyes), she would bring the stick to bear on the student’s person. The punishment she meted out was not confined to behavioral instances, but would extend also to students who couldn’t provide correct answers to her questions.