I'm sure some of the customs in the school I attended were very similar to any other school. Order. Keeping your desk neat. Not talking when the teacher was talking. Raising your hand. When the "raising your hand" thing became problematic, though, was when you were either: 1. sick to your stomach, or 2. had to go to the bathroom. In the case of #1, usually by the time a kid raised his or her hand, it was too late. Those are stories for another time. And in the case of #2, more often than not, the answer to a bathroom request was a resounding "no." Which made for several messes in the classroom on a regular basis. I always felt really sorry for the custodian who had to carry those bags of stuff to clean up after children. I was fascinated by how it worked, and thought it was some secret formula that only Catholics had, but I still didn't want to USE it.
We did a couple of things in Catholic school that weren't done in public school. Anytime we heard an emergency vehicle, we prayed for the person in the ambulance. It didn't really matter if it was a police car or a fire truck, we were just told to pray for the person in the ambulance. We didn't stop what we were doing to pray, it was just assumed that we would when the siren went by. Our school was on a fairly busy boulevard, so it happened quite often.
We were also taught a special greeting to be used when another teacher, nun or priest entered the classroom. Especially the principal of the school. When the dignitary entered, we were to stand immediately beside our desks and say with confidence "Praise be Jesus Christ, good morning/afternoon Sister Theogenia (or Bernardia, or whomever the principal happened to be at the time.) I'll admit to being one of the kids that changed the entire meaning of the phrase with my voice inflection, though. Depending on which word you emphasized, it became very disrespectful to the principal and to the Lord. I think my brother, Ming, started that trend.
In our school, there were never snow days, but there WERE heat days. With no air conditioning, when the temps got over about 90*, we closed the doors and went home. It usually didn't get hot enough until a little later in the day, so we only got about one of those a year, sadly. And as I walked home in that heat, I really pondered the wisdom of closing the school. Wouldn't it have been better to succumb to heat stroke where we could be tended to instead of along some sidewalk where we would dehydrate and turn to jerky before anyone found us?
But other than someone losing their lunch, or some other kind of disciplinary indiscretion, the most exciting time in school came when the air raid sirens went off. At 10:00 on the last Friday of each month, they wound up. Some days I remembered, and eagerly anticipated them. Anything to break up the monotony. But on other days, they completely took me by surprise and scared the junk out of me. At the sound of the sirens, we were taught to climb under our desks with our head on our knees and hands covering our necks. It was called "duck and cover" and we did it more often during the Cuban missile crisis. I'm not too sure what good that would have done if radiation was involved, but it was the position to be assumed, and so we assumed it, and never questioned.
It always took some time for the teacher to regain control and continue teaching after one of the drills. Understandably, with such large classes. And when a dignitary graced us with their presence while she was trying to restore order, even loud name calling couldn't accomplish the task.
Fear not, for I am with thee;
Be not dismayed, for I am thy God:
I will strengthen thee;
Yea, I will help thee;
Yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of
My righteousness.
Isaiah 41:10
No comments:
Post a Comment