Baldur

Even on Sundays we were kept together at mass in our classroom groups and not permitted to sit with our families. Attendance was taken.
The Sisters would stand guard next to their students, it was actually very scary. These were the days when one couldn't question such things.

The Sisters carried small devices in their pockets that made a soft clicking sound. They would click when it was time for us to stand or sit, a rapid double click meant it was time to kneel.
Talking was of course forbidden, a Sister would go up to a student who was talking out of place and slap them across the face.
There would be further punishment the next day in school.
This system seems to have died out, and for the better.
I flatly refused to raise my children that way, and am quite happy with how they turned out

Baldur

dirl - d + g = girl

polenta

OH MY GOD BALDUR you make it seem so hard, even terrible, as if your memories from school were awful. Sorry but this is my feeling. My memories from school are fantastic. I think there was respect but not strictness. I remember almost all my teachers with affection. I think they were highly qualified and fair. Of course it was a public school and absolutely secular. Why don't you draw your uniform?

Baldur

It was a horrible experience, to this day I equate the Sisters who taught me back then with demons.
Later on in a different school it was better. my first secular teacher was a blessing. Suddenly I didn't dread going to school any more.

I don't think I want to draw the uniforms, too many horrible memories there. Baldur even got rid of his school photographs from that era.

polenta

sorry, sorry then.

polenta

Baldur, speaking about school. I remember when I was at school, we didn't have any calculators those days. To check our multiplications our teachers taught us something we called LA PRUEBA DEL NUEVE (the test of nine). I used it a lot but speaking to children and teenagers now, they haven't even heard about such a thing. Was this taught in US? In fact, I don't know your age but you must be more than 40.

Baldur

I am 51.
Baldur does not recall learning 'the test of nine' though it's possible it was just forgotten.
We learned mathematics by memorization, constant drilling of multiplication tables was the method the Sisters used to beat the information into our heads. It did work, even now I do not need to put any conscious effort into coming up with an answer.

One of the things they also did quite frequently was to lie to us.
A vivid example was in out religious education referring to the wafers used during the Eucharist.
Sister Mary Barbara had told us that the Sisters themselves made them, working late hours in the Convent kitchen, rolling out the dough, paper thin with their own hands until their fingers bled.
It was not only very melodramatic but just not true. The 'hosts' were purchased from an Ecclesiastical supply company.

Baldur

Happy Birthday to Roman Polanski, Rosalynn Carter, Christian Slater, Patrick Swayze, Martin Mull, Robert Redford and Shelley Winters.

indigo

When I was in grade 8 there was a nun who everyone called
Sister Sylvester. No one wanted to sit in the front row...........

polenta

Was it also bad for you indigo?

Normal

To this day, I am thankful for the public school system, in which both my parents taught. I, too, recall many teachers with affection & gratittude. By contrast, a good friend detests all nuns as a result of his parochial school upbringing. He also had an alcoholic father. Interestingly, in typical "wounded healer" fashion, he became a psychological counselor. AND his three kids turned out beautifully. Our schools did a great job on basic math and grammar without any rapping of knuckles with a ruler.

indigo

It wasn't terrrible polenta...I also went to public school which I liked.
My problem was I moved to Ontario when I was five years old and was
too old to go to kindergarten, so I went straight into grade 1....and I ended
up doubling grade 1 because I had a hard time with English, French being
my mother tongue. I did all my schooling in English even when we moved
back into the province of Quebec and now I'm back in Ontario. All in all school
was fun except for mathematics.

Dragon

Baldur- when you spoke of the sisters using a clicking device I instantly thought of clicker method of training dogs. Seems like they were trying to teach you to be good like spaniels or something. Of course most people who would happily clicker train a dog would be horrified at the thought of hitting them for unwanted behaviour so maybe the nuns at your school could have used a little training themselves from a good behaviouralist.
As for my school days I remember both teachers I loved and teachers I hated (though none were as openly abusive as Baldurs nuns). One in particular comes to mind, the type of teacher no one likes. He happily threw me out of class and made me sit in the hall with 2 or 3 other kids who weren't up to snuff that day. My great crime that day? I had the gall to draw equator and the tropics on a map of the world when he hadn't specified that the map needed them. I recall that this same teacher absolutly forbid any sort of food in his classroom, no big deal, many teachers did. The difference was that our class was right before lunch when we were all just getting hungry and he would sit at his desk noisily eating an apple, all the while making loud mmmmm sounds. I swear those apples must have been positively orgasmic from the way he enjoyed them.

I will say, in regards to school uniforms, I'm not against them. Seeing the way a lot of kids dress today I don't think it would be a bad thing if they had to pull up thier pants or stop dressing like their going clubbing.

Dragon

Here's an interesting little story I just found.

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/index.php?rn=222562&cl=21458167&ch=&s rc=canadanews

polenta

so many bears.... and docile!!!! Incredible!!!!
The thing about Dragon's eating makes me think children eat lunch at school in Canada.
I went to school from 8 to 12 and went back home to have lunch. I know there are double-shift schools now but public schools were only one shift some 50 years ago. We had a half-hour break at 10 or 10,30 and those who wanted could eat a snack or something they bought but we ate it in the playground.
I adore this topic and we can ALL speak about our school years. And how these young years left an impression in our tender souls.

Login

For me, school was from 0900 to 1600, with an hours break for lunch. We received a drink and two courses of cooked food in a cafeteria style refectory, for which our parents paid a fixed amount each week. I enjoyed the food, especially the desserts.

As for punishments, I received nothing worse than a slap across the calves with the flat side of a ruler, for not paying attention ... it didn't cure me of the tendency.

polenta

it's so interesting Login. You went double-shift. I wonder what happened with those kids whose parents couldn't afford to pay for their lunch. I had heard of the ruler punishment. Our teachers would have been fired if they did so. I began school in 1956 I think and things changed in the mid-fifties. Corporal punishment even if it was pulling a pupil's ear was absolutely forbidden. I remember some children having to copy a sentence like "I HAVE TO BEHAVE BETTER" a hundred times as a punishment. LOL
I suppose this happened because teachers were after all public servants of a very complicated beaurocratic system and they were told not to punish their students in their bodies at all. As a result, punishment was in the form of copies or going to the front corner and standing there for some minutes facing the wall and being observed by all their classmates
I can't believe I remember all this after half a century!!!

Dragon

When I was in elementary school (Kindergarten-Gr.6) we lived close enough for me to walk home for lunch. Well not kindergarten, that was only half day. But I fondly remember walking home and watching Spiderman cartoons and Buckshot (which was a local kids show) before going back to school in the afternoon. In Jr.High I had to bus it to school and so I stayed at lunch, we didn't have a cafeteria, they just put tables up in the smaller gym (we had 2). They did have a little concession where you could buy a bag of chips or chocolate bars or whatnot. In High School we had a proper cafeteria where you could buy burgers or fries (the fries and gravy were a particular favorite of mine) or other things like that but I usually brought my own lunch to save money. We started at 8:30 or 9:00 and were done at 3:30 except on Fridays when we had a shortened lunch hour and 1 fewer class that day so we got off at 1:30 or so.

As for corporal punishment in school, any teacher who physically hit a student would probably have found themselves packing their bags pretty darn quick. We did have one teacher who threw chalk at you if you weren't paying attention but he was actually one of the more fun teachers and most of the students pretty much liked him. The chalk throwing was more of a 'Wake Up!' than anything malicious.

Polenta, did your school finish at 12:00 for all grades? Did you only go to classes in the morning right through to Grade 12? If so, how did you get all your classes in, do kids in Uruguay go to school year round or do they get a summer vacation like kids in North America get?

polenta

Dragon, I went to school 6 years in the morning shift (8 to 12). Then I went to High School for 4 years in the middle shift (from around 12 or 1230 to 4 or 430) and then we went to what we called Preparatorios or a school where they "prepared" us for the future university courses. In school and high school our subjects were obligatory, we couldn't choose any subjects. When we finished the four years of high school we had to decide what "preparatorios" we would choose. That was the first time we could choose anything.
As for hours:
SCHOOL(six years). Four hours from Monday to Friday.
HIGH SCHOOL(four years) Four or 4and a half hours from Monday to Saturday.
PREPARATORIOS(two years) Much more flexible and with subjects connected to our future university choice.

polenta

I think I understand you Dragon. When we went to high-school I'm not counting gym or a chorus, drama, sports or any extra-curricular activity only academic subjects.
One incredible thing that happened those days is that we had 4 years of French (obligatory) and only 2 years of English (obligatory).