was this teacher too mean?

I don't think so at all. The students did it willingly and learned some great lessons from doing it!

 

How could it be "mean?" It's how I grew up. I never had cable tv, internet, or even a calculator. I actually had to do my own reference work by going to a library instead of Google. I had to learn to add, subtract, multiply, and divide in my head. I communicated with people who were not close by with something we called a "letter." We wrote it out long hand and put it in an envelope, put a stamp on it (at first 3 cents, but that went up to 4 cents in 1959 and 5 cents in 1963 - after that I was in the Army and they didn't charge me postage while I was overseas) and mailed it!

We didn't have Nintendo, Wii, or even color television. We listened to the radio (I grew up on the Grande Ole Opry). Cars didn't have automatic transmissions and we actually had to roll the windows up and down by hand.

We mowed the lawn with a push mower. No engine - all the power you could push with. We didn't have weed wackers, we just pulled them up by the roots.

No air conditioning. Just a fan when it got hot. Coal furnace for cold winter days. Coal was hand shoveled into the furnace. Later we got an oil fired furnace and I thought I was in heaven. I didn't have to get up at 5 am and go down to the basement and shovel coal into the furnace so the house would be warm and the water would be hot for our morning bath (no shower).

And we were not poor sharecroppers! Dad made a lot of money. We lived in a 3 story 15 room house. He brought a new Lincoln convertible every year. No car washes in those days. Every Saturday my job was to wash the car. In return I got to sit in the front seat when we went somewhere. And at 16 I got to drive it on special occasions.

No, not mean at all. Just a taste of what life used to be like. And we all did alright without all the modern devices. In fact, it was my generation that invented all those modern devices.

I have a friend here in our retirement community who goes to the gym every day for much needed exercise. Me, nope. No gym for me. I just do everything the old fashioned way.