4 cool questions on a Monday

Welcome to Tuesday 4 Questions to share

School days help to shape our future personality. 

1. 
   Share a story of your school days that you think may have helped shape who you are today.
2. Did you have a favorite teacher and what made them special to you?
3. Did you enjoy the rituals of school.. new clothing, pencils, notebooks, etc.?
4. Did you walk to school or ride the bus? Do you have a story to share on that?
   

 

 

 1) and 2) 

I liked school and loved learning, especially to read and write. I still love reading and writing all these years later. I told my mother I was not starting to first grade... she asked why and I said something like

"those big kids know how to read and I don't!"

Mostly I didn't think of teachers as anything but scary foreign adults but then my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Vedouris, turned that around. I loved her. 

I also loved my 10th grade Biology teacher, Mr. Spearman,  my first African American male teacher. So smart, so calm, so in control of the classroom allowing us to relax and learn... I believe he instilled a love of Biology in me that caused me to major in it for two years at university. He was a model of calm assurance for me in a turbulent home life, which he never knew anything about. I was a quiet studious girl but he impressed me. 

My senior English teacher taught me that I could have a love of literature, write and be witty. She was such a complete personality. A whole woman, living a whole life out loud that I just wanted to be like her. Years later I was a social worker in a school, and one of my students told me she wanted to be like me... not afraid. Oh my gosh, I am always afraid! But she saw me in a way like I saw my high school teacher... what a nice circle. 

In university I took a political science class, the teacher was a retired CIA man who taught me to read statistics and news articles with a critical eye... to look for bias and to look for facts, to think about what I read in context and put together different articles to seek what was really going on. He taught us that many reputable news accounts were fact checked and those were trustworthy.

 That turned me around... caused me to join life in a way I hadn't done as a "good student" who just accepted anything she read. I learned you can trust the news, you can trust people who research, and you can consider different sides of an issue before making up your mind where you stood. He forced us to actually take a side on issues too, which my authoritarian parents had never allowed. 

It was their opinions that counted, and I was to be 'good" and do as I was told. That CIA operative who turned to education told me differently. I was to consider facts and make up my own mind.

3) Oh yes! What a production... choosing a notebook, with it's pretty binder and organization inside. New unchewed pencils with new erasers and extra cone shaped erasers to put on their ends. A new set of crayons in grade school, a flip top bandaid box to hold lunch tickets in my desk, new school shoes... 

Shoes were very important. We got one pair for school... and you had to fit in while being a little different. I would go to the shoe store, stand on the foot measuring devise, try on pairs and get to make a choice. 

New school dresses too, and new socks. Oh it was a production alright. Don't forget the lunchbox... another vital decision. This would define me all year. It had a thermos that would sometimes hold soup sometimes hold a drink. I can to this day smell an open lunchbox with it's ham sandwich or baloney sandwich inside, with a personal size bag of chips or carrots. If I ate at the cafeteria I remember sloppy joes days.... the whole school smelled great those days!

I still love new notebooks, new pens, new folders. It's hard to resist the pretty ones made today. For my lectures I made flip index cards that reminded me of the next points to be made. I have a lot of index cards in the office at the moment, with colorful files and pads of paper. 

4) I walked to school in elementary, it was about 8 blocks away. I had an exhilarating sense of independence. I walked to junior high about a mile in the other direction but on the same street too. It was an enormous building compared to elementary, housing 7,8, and 9th grades. The high school was lots bigger, there were nearly 400 students in my graduating class with nearly 3000 in the three grade levels. It was at this stage I began riding to school with friends. 

We were hot stuff, in that old clunker, laughing before school, belonging to a group. 

At some point as a senior I was given a car by my father, and had my own parking place behind the school. It was wonderful but I missed hanging out in that big old sweaty car having my hair blown around, talking about boys and teachers on the one mile drive each morning. 

Thank you for asking these questions and reminding me who I am, who I was, how I felt, and the distance I've traveled over my lifetime. The major lessons seem to be, 

think

make decisions

be kind but be yourself

persevere

follow your interests

keep learning all your life and follow the golden rule... remember that? common good? Teachings of Jesus? Do unto others as you want them to do unto you... if only we all still did that. It works in a marriage and will work as a country

 LINKING TO

https://tuesdaysplace.blogspot.com/

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