Mini-Courses

I made an 89 in my 7th grade computer class. Who would have guessed? First computer class. Maybe it was the new school. Maybe it was my inadeptness with Apple II’s. I did better the next year: 94.
I don’t remember much about the computer class. I remember playing Oregon Trail and Mario Bros. But that’s about it. We might have written a program or two. Infinite loops. You know the drill. I still don’t know why I made a B in computers in 7th grade. That is alluding me. It might have been the new jargon. I hadn’t used a computer in a while….actually it was probably my first introduction to them, apart from my Atari 2600 and Texas Instruments.
Computers, Art, Music and Reading were taken as mini-courses at the junior high. We had each for 6 weeks, having Reading twice. I guess they wanted us to get the most out of reading. Mini-courses were for those subjects which they really didn’t have a full year worth of curriculum. Either that or they just wanted to squeeze in a large amount of subjects within one period throughout the year.
Then again there seemed to be a degree of redundancy since I was already taking band and had another Music class during one six weeks period. Basically I had band during first period, then I moved on to music during 2nd period. A whole morning of music.
Our music teacher was a bit on the strange side. There’s a rumor hanging around that her students always tried to get her upset enough to make her cry. I don’t remember much about it. I remember a bunch of rude people in there who had no respect for the teacher. One day we were allowed to bring our own music to listen to for the entire day. Somebody brought a RUSH tape. That’s all I remember.