My school day began with a bell... as did every event at boarding school :0) The ushering into our seats, locating the right desk. Sometimes finding your desk could be a problem. We had the wooden desks with lift up lids. All our school work resided inside to be used through out the day. Soemtimes teh school girl pranksters would get it into their head to move a desk and if you weren't ready it could prove disasterous. Lifting you lid to get your math book out only to find you are sitting at someone elses desk.. or all your stuff is gone but there is a bowl of water, a lilly pad and a frog in your desk.. or somone taped an egg to the desk and lid so as you opened it the egg cracked .. that was no yolk I can tell you! And of course you don't say a word.. to tatle tale would be social death! While the concept of no one talking to me for days at a time seems like adream come true now, as a nine year old it was enough to keep you quiet and blundering through the best you could :0)

I'm sure I learnt lots of other things at school but surviving children was #1 lesson learnt!.. that helped a lot when I was a high school teacher myself and makes me appreciate the learning enviroment my children have now... though I have to confess to an itching desire one in a while to tape some eggs to chairs/desks or throw wet toilet tissue on the cieling so it can dry out during the school day and randomly drop on the childrens heads as they study ..