Tag Archives: elementary school

The Ormondale Pony

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/29/21
Primary Language: English

Background: The informant likes this piece because it reminded her of the kinds of stories she’d used to hear in elementary school. Belief in the pony was shared by her classmates although it didn’t affect them in their daily lives, often forgetting about it.

SD: So this is the story about a horse, Ormondale, who is allegedly buried under my elementary school gym or something. Uh yeah, so I was always told this story as a child. This school, our elementary school was split up, we had, uh, K-3rd, and then there was a 4th-8th, so this was at the first one, this was at the K-3rd school, uh, it was called Ormondale and it was named after a horse, or I think maybe a pony, I don’t really know the distinction personally, but yeah, and I guess it was a race horse, I don’t know how the school ended up named after the horse, I mean, uh, oh it was a pony! Yes! Our mascot was the Ormondale ponies. Um, I don’t know how the, I think, I don’t know, maybe the person who founded the school, it was their horse or something, but, legend says that uh, well the pony is supposedly buried underneath, uh, the school gym, and I don’t ever believe that I was ever told that it haunts the school, I think that it was more of a, a freaky thing that there’s a corpse underneath the gymnasium rather than like a, like a ghostly, like a friendly ghost. I think it’s more corpse related than an afterlife. But, I think, I think it’s a nice story. I never believed it, but I think there are a lot of children, now adults, still children if this story’s still being told today, which I would assume it is, uh, that would believe this story.

Me: Did you first hear the story when you were in elementary school?

SD: I did. I think I first heard this story, uh, maybe in first grade. We, we didn’t talk about it often–actually I think we talked about it for like a month when we first learned the story, and then it was kind of a big deal, and then everyone forgot about it. I mean, I forgot about it for like the past decade. It maybe came into my brain once or twice after I was six years old, uh, but, other than that, I don’t know. I mean, the weird thing about it is that it’s entirely plausible, but why would anyone do it?

Me: Are there behavior changes that come with being around the gym, like does anybody avoid it or try not to–?

SD: No I think, I mean, well, because you’re that young, I feel like things just go in one ear out the other. Sometimes you’ll think about it and sometimes you’re like yeah it’s gym time, let’s do the Pacer. So I don’t think that there are any behavior changes whether or not they are related to the supposed haunting, and/or corpse body of the pony. I honestly kind of believe it though. It’s not impossible. It’s not haunted, it’s not a ghost thing. Because that I wouldn’t believe.

Context: This piece was collected during an in person conversation.

Thoughts: This seems like a belief that may be somewhat of a legend, since it could be true. The informant was quick to say she didn’t believe in it, but later went back and qualified her response; that since the belief that the pony haunts isn’t as common as simply the existence of a corpse, she says she believes it. As with many beliefs shared in elementary school, looking back, it is easy to quickly say you don’t believe it and dismiss it as childish.

Tie-day Friday

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/25/2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

What was this event?

“I did not participate in it, but Tie-day-Friday was… did the school do it? No, it just started by people wearing ties on Friday. It was in elementary school, I have no idea who started it. I feel like people just started saying it because it was fun, and then it became a thing”

Context:

 My informant is my twin sister. She is Jewish, attended Los Angeles public school, and is currently a USC sophomore. This information was collected during a family zoom call where we were checking in with each other.

Analysis:

I was an active participant of Tie-day Friday. It was a fun tradition that allowed elementary schoolers to wear something an elementary schooler wouldn’t wear normally. No one knows who started it, but it created a fun inside joke shared by the student body. This inside joke unified us against the administration because they didn’t know that they were supposed to wear ties on Fridays, which was very amusing to the students.  

Chopsticks: The Game

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/25/2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

How do you play?

“Ok, so each player put out their pointer finger on each hand, ok, wait I know this. So… hmmm wait… the goal of the game is to get your partner to have five fingers out on both hands. And then they lose. And the way you play is you stick out your pointer finger on each hand, and you tap one of your partner’s hands, and they have to add a-as many fingers as you currently have out to that hand.”

Do you have any special rules?

“Yes, so let’s say you have three fingers out on one hand and one on the other, and then you want to switch, you can hit your hands and make them two and two. You can transfer as many fingers as you want to your other hand. And even if your hand is out, you can, like, still redistribute fingers to it and bring it back in.”

Context:

The informant is my twin sister. She is Jewish and attended public school her entire life. This information was collected during a family zoom call where we were checking in with each other.

Analysis:

My informant’s account of Chopsticks’ rules was quite difficult to understand, which emphasizes that this game is best taught visually and learned through practice. Chopsticks is an engaging and competitive game that lets children exercise their mental math and strategy skills. It’s complicated enough to warrant fierce competition, but simple enough to master after only playing a few rounds. I even established social groups in elementary school through playing chopsticks and similar games.

“Four-Square” Rules and Children’s Social Space

Nationality: Vietnamese-American
Age: 10
Occupation: Elementary School Student
Residence: Iowa
Performance Date: 5/1/2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

B: So basically, there’s four squares. So each square has a name. So the first square is “baby,” the second one is, “jack,” the third is, “queen,” and the last one is “king.” So basically, the king, serves the ball to the other square, and the ball can only hit your square once. If it hits your square two times then you’re out. And then if it bounces in your square and you hit it to the other square, and if you get that person out, then you move up a square until you’re King. and then all the lines are out, and if the ball hits the line then you’re out. 

Background: 

My informant is my cousin’s 10-year-old son, who is in the fourth grade. He lives in a suburban neighborhood near Des Moines, which is the capital of Iowa. He goes to a public elementary school in his district, where he learned how to play this game from his friend in the third grade. He tells me that he likes this game mostly because of its social aspect; he plays with his friends and converses with them, telling each other stories while they wait for their turns.

Context:

This is a transcript of our conversation over the phone. Lately, he has been telling me stories about what goes on during school, though this conversation was prompted specifically for this collection project. I was curious about what kind of games he plays during school with other kids, and four-square was unsurprisingly brought up.

Thoughts:

Growing up also going to a public elementary school, four-square was a popular recess activity. I was curious about what kind of different rules his school might have for their version of the game and was surprised about how simple and similar it was to my school’s version ten years before him. The main difference was how his school named the squares, which seem to go along with the suits in a deck of cards, aside from “baby.” Our version simply numbered them from 1 to 4, with 1 being the top position (which would be their “king.”) The most fascinating aspect of his story is how four-square was not just a physical activity for kids to burn off the calories of lunch and antsy-ness built up from sitting in class all day, but how it was also a highly social activity. Within our larger conversation, he revealed to me that it was through playing four-square and waiting in line to play four-square that he learned about many other folk stories such as “bloody mary” and the phenomenon of killer clowns from 2016. Thus, children’s games such as this game of four-square can be much more than physical activities to burn off energy. They can represent social spaces where children test each other’s fears and courage.

Maypole Dance at Waldorf School

Nationality: German-American (American citizenship)
Age: 22
Occupation: USC undergraduate studying economics; Strategic Innovation Intern (technology consulting)
Residence: 2715 Portland St Los Angeles CA 90007
Performance Date: 5/1/21
Primary Language: English
Language: German

This friend told me this story late at night in the kitchen on May 1, 2021. We were surrounded by four other friends who moved in and out of the room, and he spoke about his experience attending annual Maypole celebrations at a New York (Ghent) Waldorf School.

*

“I went to a very alternative school called a Waldorf School… and they have a lot of different celebrations and practices and things, and one that is very timely is their May Day celebration… one of the main components of May Day is a maypole. I’m not sure which kids are assigned different parts but each has a ribbon and they dance around the pole creating a pattern, this interesting woven pattern on the pole. The ribbons all weave to form a lattice.”

The speaker said that he thought the celebration might be a way to welcome summer, and that different grades performed different tasks in the May Day celebration. The school included grades Kindergarten through twelfth grade, and students in the third grade often performed the Maypole dance. Students in the sixth and seventh grades played instruments (flute, cello, violin, clarinet, viola) in the orchestra.

I asked the speaker to explain, in his own words, what it meant to attend a Waldorf school. “Waldorf school is a pedagogical movement that began in Germany as an education system started by these same people wo run the Waldorf Hotels or Waldorf cigarette companies, and they started this school for the kids of the factory workers,” the speaker said. “And the goal is like to offer holistic creativity-focused education. So there’s a lot of visual arts and performing arts and a lot of things that wouldn’t really fall under the generally accepted scope of academics.”

The speaker said that grounds crew set up the 20- or 30-foot Maypole in late April and that the structure stayed up for a few weeks after May. He said that every student had to take part in this celebration. Younger students would get excited about the celebration. He said that older students did not want to stand in the hot sun playing a violin wearing a dress shirt.

The speaker said that he does not do anything special for May Day, and that he did not appreciate this celebration until after he left the Waldorf school. “That school never really communicated why we were doing what we were doing,” he said, noting that he appreciates this experience in retrospect

*

I did not know that this friend attended a Waldorf school, and I was able to tell him later that the Maypole dance is a fertility dance. It seems odd that third graders would take part in this dance, but they are also young and full of life. The Maypole represents a phallus. I asked questions about how the students received this tradition, and it struck me odd that a school designed to promote the arts would not explain the history or meaning of this celebration.

It is also relevant that this speaker told this tale on May 1. He later explained that he remembered this tradition because he had received a school email describing online May Day celebrations. This shows that some newsletters can be very important for the communities in which they share information. He continues to be loosely part of this Waldorf school community long after he graduated and moved away from this location.