I attended Fairview Junior High for Grades 7, 8, and 9 – three years with a lot of social grief but also a lot of fun.
I remember nothing of the Honours program itself, but I do know that I developed my lifelong habits of writing and rewriting notes as a studying tool (I still go through reams of note paper) and making a list for everything (although now I call it a “bullet journal” and spend extra time making it look cool).
I can flash back to so many images: exchanging notes with my best friend during class, eyeing the boy I had a crush on, wearing cool elephant pants as I walked through the hallways, sitting in the art room, enjoying lemons during time-outs with my basketball team, enduring fingernail inspection in Home Ec class, walking with the girls to Health Class as the boys went separately to theirs.
I took the city bus to school (I don’t actually recall ever seeing an orange school bus) – we were issued packets of tickets that got us on free of charge.
Here are the teenage highlights!
Basketball.
I was a star! In one memorable game, with my parents in the bleachers, I scored 4 points in a nail-biter 12-4 win! My uniform was two sizes too big because my head wouldn’t fit through the smaller neck openings… sigh.
Volleyball.
Nope. Didn’t make the team. I was offered the position of team manager… but I declined.
I didn’t make the cheerleader team either. Oh well.
Track and Field.
I ran hurdles (that’s Canadian Perdita Felicien) and loved high jump, learning to swish over that bar backwards – using the new-fangled ‘Brill bend’ after Canadian Debbie Brill. I wasn’t great but I had fun.
The Beatles.
They were huge, and Hey Jude was the biggest song of all. We all had plenty of other 45’s too, carefully stacking them for non-stop entertainment.
Sewing.
Our first projects were a potholder and apron (without the frills). It was the start of a skill I’ve happily expanded over the years.
Sock Hops.
The monthly dances (this is a great shot from the web that I couldn’t find a link to) held after school on Fridays. I went to every one with my friends… but was a wallflower and never had a dance partner the entire year.
Miles for Millions.
A 40 km walk through the city to raise funds for African poverty: 8 hours with my friends amid thousands of other students, transistor radios in hand. We laughed and chatted, then felt the tremendous wave of accomplishment as we crossed the finish line. The next day at school however, I FORGOT TO BRING MY RED RIBBON! I was crushed.
Spelling.
The devastation of getting 99% instead of 100 on a spelling exam – I spelled “judgment” with an “e”. In Grade 8 I didn’t question… and it was years later that I learned that the two are interchangeable and I could finally rest easy!
Class Speeches.
I only remember the one on hieroglyphics (hieroglyphics??) or more precisely the time I invested in its preparation… researching, writing, and making diagrams (diagrams??), then trying to reduce its extraordinary length. My brain has blocked how the actual speech went – which is probably a good thing!
And finally, those daily school announcements. A friend and I were chosen to read them over the loudspeaker at lunch time… and we loved spending time in the normally off-limits secretarial space to do so. We got the giggles more than once as we fought for control.
On one of those days, good fortune fell our way when we discovered torn-up pieces of an upcoming science exam in a garbage can. We scooped up the scraps and over the next day or two spent every spare moment piecing them together so that we could see all the questions… but it left no time to study and I received my lowest score – EVER – on a test.
Like everyone, I’m sure the junior high years forged much of how I look at things today, full of uplifting experiences in sports, arts, music, and the advances of those times, but for myself it was also all within an environment of being a social outsider. Fortunately, this improved tremendously when I got to high school.
My Name is Sydney Jo 