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Parochial school must have changed since I went through it back in the day. We used our "religion book", and never opened a Bible. We did hear readings from the Bible when we went to Mass. I still don't know much about the Bible but my mind is full of minutiae that I learned in elementary school. Can't say any of it was random crap as I've used most of it in life.
My school operated like yours. I attended Catholic high school in the Philly area. During my years (2009-2013) at that school, I never opened a Bible! Freshman year, we learned about the life of Jesus. Junior year, we learned about Catholic morality (where I really found out that I disagree with some views of the Catholic church). Senior year, we focused on the history of Catholicism. We did have regular Mass, which I enjoyed since our choir was top-notch. I even took Communion as a non-Catholic (shhhh...don't tell!)! How I miss high school
Now, back to elementary school. I went to a relatively poor charter school in the Philadelphia suburbs. Even though the charter school wasn't the best, it was much better than attending the statistically worst school district in PA! In the 3rd grade, which was in 2003/2004, I remember doing times tables. I used to get all of the problems right! We ended up doing times tables up until 12's. Each times table with a certain percentage right earned us part of an ice cream sundae at the end. Since I got all of the tables right, I was entitled to a whole sundae (WHICH I ENJOYED ). Also in the 3rd grade, I remember that we played this game called "math marathon". It was always girls vs boys. I was the boy's team's "secret weapon". We had to stop playing it because the girls always lost and would proceed to cry since the winners would always get candy.
Yet another 3rd grade story involved my HOT teacher. She really liked me as a student. She also knew that I had written a song about Honey Nut Cheerios (I'll try to remember the lyrics*). One day, when all the students were to go to breakfast, she had me stay. She had bought me some Honey Nut Cheerios and milk, and wanted to have breakfast with me. In that grade, I didn't like girls yet. When she offered that, I thought she was going to kiss me! I told her no and went to breakfast. If I had that opportunity now, I would have taken it in a heartbeat (even though she probably doesn't look like she did 11 years ago)!
I remember learning about the three different types of rocks in the 6th grade. They are sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous.
*LYRICS (remembered them! )
I want my...Honey Nut Cheerios
Give me my...Honey Nut Cheerios
I want my...Honey Nut Cherrios,
Today, away
The teacher showed us how to make butter-she put whipping cream in a jar and we all got to shake the jar - crackers were passed around and we all got butter for the crackers.
Corporal punishment was still in full swing in the New York City public schools. 1972-1973 maybe? I was in the 3rd grade. Ms. Falk was so mean, she would"pick" on one student and they would have to bear the brunt of her torture- to the tune of being led around the perimeter of the classroom- teacher walking forward and student walking backyard- while she twisted your ear. Lydia Cox used to be the target most of the time- she was the darkest girl in our class.
Funny how I can still remember all that- I'm 50 years old and from time to time
have wondered whatever happened to Lydia.
Just writing that made me feel sad- we were literally abused. Not cool
Once a week a Chinese lady came into our class to teach us Spanish.
We had one teacher that would wheel in a TV, turn on Top Cat cartoons and leave the room for an hour.
The food in the cafeteria was so bad that the janitor would sit at one of the tables with his mop and bucket. I remember an English teacher would play her Simon and Garfunkel albums and we were all allowed to snooze. The worst days in grade school that I remember were the rainy days where we had to stay in the class and play boring board games with each other and since we didn't have air conditioning and had to keep the windows closed because of the rain, it got real muggy in there.
You've have been better off if the teacher had been introduced you to R. Crump the creator of Mr. Natural (Keep on Truckin!), Fritz the Cat, and that unforgettable super hero Wonder Wart Hog (The Big Pig). Crumb also created one of the best posters of the 1960s entitled "Let's Talk Some Sense About This Here America".
I slipped up, it should be R. Crumb not R. Crump. As Jimi once sang "If a 6 turned out to be 9".
In music class to learn body parts (I guess) we sang "For we are the Roman Soldiers."
It went like - "now I only have one leg for we are the Roman Soldiers. ..." and then we all had to balance on one leg. "And now I only have one eye for we are the Roman Soldiers. ...." and then we all put a hand over our eye.
We also sang a song called "Santa Clause is Dead" in our 4th grade play about Santa quitting.
(And only like 10% of our class is now in prison or a psych facility.)
I remember in 6th grade learning the metric system and how to manually calculate the square root of any number. Twenty years later and I still know the metric system and how to calculate the square root of any number. Knowing the metric system is handy as I live near the Canadian border and go there often. Knowing how to calculate square roots? Totally useless knowledge.
In fourth grade we spent an entire semester learning about Eskimos in Social Studies class- nothing but Eskimos- and the text book we used and videos we saw had to be from the early 1950's. I spent years believing that all Eskimos live in igloos and eat nothing but whale blubber.
A teacher informed us that the word forte (fort), is not pronounced for-tay. So, since everyone does pronounce it, for-tay, I still do not know if the teacher was right.
In third grade I became familiar with the word, "menace."
It was winter and the snow was piled high on our playground which was also the town square. I joined some boys in my class playing a game of "King of the Hill" on the snow piles and we were all held after school to write, "The King of the Hill is a menace" one-hundred times.
From then on I knew not to play that rough and tumble game during school hours but it was only years later that I found out what the word "menace" meant.
It suddenly occurs to me - hadn't I ever heard of a dictionary?
I never understood why we had to learn "La Cucaracha" just because it was in Spanish class. They never taught us all the words, it was just a melody. And it's about a cockroach, for God's sake.
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). Also in the 3rd grade, I remember that we played this game called "math marathon". It was always girls vs boys. I was the boy's team's "secret weapon". We had to stop playing it because the girls always lost and would proceed to cry since the winners would always get candy. 
