Feelin' Groovy

Don't Do This to Your Students

Feelin’ Groovy

(L to R) Me, sister April, sister Laura in our “Feelin’ Groovy” early 1970s garb

      It was 1972, back when 6^th grade was still part of elementary school. We sat in straight rows, and each row represented a level in terms of our reading group. There were just a few of us in the row “Readers at an 8^th-grade level”. Now, how this was actually determined, I suppose was by the previous teacher’s testing.

      Suffice it to say, that the majority of my classmates were struggling with a task and subject I found easy…I think the real reason I was in that class, was my stupidity in math as very few students left the room when it was “Math Time” to rotate into another class to meet their math level.

      Back to my reading row…with the bright pink basal reader in hand, I followed along during the daily “round robin” style one student at a time reads while the others in the group listen/follow along. The teacher would decide where one would stop reading and the next student began. I had already read the book cover-to-cover and knew, that the one, the ONLY thing I did not want to read was the song lyrics to a Simon and Garfunkel song.

    This specific song is known as “Feelin’ Groovy” but actually has another name. Because of copyright laws, suffice it to say, that to read, the words, “Doot n’ doo, doo” stands as one of the top mortifying events of my life. The entire class burst out laughing. Our teacher smacked her wooden paddle on her desk (yep, a teacher was allowed to spank) and the class quieted. 5,000 doo-doo’s later, in a song that is actually very short when sung, I did not feel groovy and was forced to endure the chants of “Doo Doo” on the playground for the rest of the year from the cadre’ of ornery boy classmates, who found both reading and math a challenge.

      It was then and there that I SWORE if I ever became a teacher, I would never a. set my classroom up in terms of reading or math levels in such an obvious way and b. never make anyone read anything that sounded stupid when in spoken word.

Thank you for listening and thank you for reading. Are you Feeling’ Groovy? Share in the comment section.