But my first day in real school started when I was 6 years old and I entered the big brick building next door to Francis Scott Key. A large chain link fence ran the length between the two schools and each tried to pretend the other didn't exist. It was in that large brick building that I met my first real live teacher. She was wearing a long black wool garb with a huge rosary hanging from her belt and she had two points on her head. Her outfit had starched white material that totally hid her head and neck so that only her face peeked out, and she had boots on. Those outfits had to be a real drag on 90* days.
My teachers name was Sister Emmaline and she was as sweet as the day is long.......... at least for the few days that she lasted. I think Sister E was about 100 years old when the 66 children in my class showed up at her door; most of us crying.
One day when I walked into the classroom, Sister Emmaline was no longer there and had been replaced by a lay teacher named Mrs. VonEtchon. As soon as the bell rang, Mrs. VE proceeded to recite the litany of rules for the classroom, and then she demonstrated how quickly she could navigate all those rows of desks to take care of any infractions. I remember the wind in my hair as she sailed past me. And the sound that the pointer made when she smacked it down on some poor unsuspecting kids desk.
The tears quickly abated under Sister Emmaline's sweetness, but all eyes overflowed under Mrs. VonEtchon's baleful glare, especially when she told us that we had ruined Sister Emmaline's health. She had steel gray hair that matched her wool jumper, crooked yellow teeth, and she wore sensible shoes. The better to catch us with, I guess. I felt really sorry for my friend Gisele, when I found out Mrs. VE was actually her grandmother.
Anyway, first grade was merely the the beginning of a long school career under the tutelage of various and sundry nuns and lay teachers. They all had their strengths and weaknesses, and I applaud every one of them because having spent time at the front of a classroom myself, I'm not sure how it is that I not only survived as a child in such huge classes, but also learned how to read and write so well. True, there were grueling homework sessions every night that lasted several hours each, but I still give them a lot of credit.
Early on in my schooling, the principal, Sister Theogenia, decided that we needed foreign language classes. I would love to have been a fly on the wall in THAT faculty meeting when she informed the teachers that one more responsibility would be added to their list! But as it turned out, only a couple of the nuns would be responsible for the language classes, because only a couple of them were qualified to teach them. Sister Theogenia had decided that the most practical language for us to learn, in Southern California, with the huge Spanish speaking population, was Polish. Yes. The nuns would be teaching us to speak Polish.
Sister Theogenia was a thin woman, and seemed fairly intelligent and attractive under her glasses with blue lenses. I never heard or saw her lose her cool, though she was known to drag boys down the long hallway by their ears. And it was in her infinite wisdom that Polish was the path we would take. I think it lasted a grand total of about a week. And it was the shining moment for my second language, for all I ever spoke after that was Spanglish, the tongue of SoCal survival.
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind,
and with all thy strength:
This is the first commandment.
Mark 12:30
No comments:
Post a Comment