My own nun-experience (or not) post
I don’t really have a whole lot of experience with nuns. I grew up going to Sunday School, which, as I was frequently informed by my Catholic best friend all the way through grade school, was “Baby School”. We’d duke it out or whatever we did and regroup the next day when the Waisanen brothers (all four of them) would throw rocks at us in my alley and we would have to fight them instead.
She went to the Catholic grade school a couple blocks away and I went to the heathen school Stinkin’ Linkin, which was right across the street from my house and I could red-queen over there in seconds. After school and on Saturdays, we ruled the neighborhood. Or so we thought.
The trouble was that I was often pretty bored over at Stinkin’ Linkin. I dunno how I couldda been because when I went back to the local community college to brush up on some skills a few years ago, I had to absolutely work my you-know-what off to maintain a 4.0 average but, what the heck, at that late date for being a student, I didn’t need to maintain a social life too. My social life was constantly banging me over the head! Back in grade school, things were a little slow for a kid with a birthday not too far off the cutoff date and I got really tired of waiting for other kids to understand basic phonics and math facts, etc.
So. My Catholic friend was often given *projects* to do by the nuns over at St. Joe’s. Projects that involved making multi-page reports that featured pictures cut out of the National Geographic and pasted onto pages with a little copy underneath them. Wow! I wanted to do that too! And I did! Whenever my Catholic friend was assigned a project like that, I would make my own similar project right along with her! And once she told Sister Agnes Mary (or whoever) that her buddy from the heathen school Stinkin’ Linkin did those projects too. Guess what? That nun expressed pleasant surprise that she had inspired another kid not even in her class. I think she was probably one of the good ones.
February 18th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
“… reports that featured pictures … pasted onto pages with a little copy underneath them.”
Wow! Sounds like your first blog.
… and they are all good ones! Who should you believe, a now defenseless nun or the twins of terror?
February 18th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
I remember those projects. The nuns loved to assign posters and booklets. Lots of work but I think we learned something. The worst part of turning in my project was the fact that I had to do mine by myself because my mom and dad did not have time to do our work – (and I don’t think they would have anyhow) They were too busy taking care of my younger sibs. My mom always had a lot of resource material and craft material around for us to use for the projects, but we had to do our own research, write our own reports, and draw our own maps etc… I would always, always, always get a “C” on my projects. No matter how hard I worked. Then “Mary” (named after the Blessed Mother) would come in with her neat project that her mom had done and she would get an “A”. You could always tell when someones mom or dad had helped. You would think that the teacher would know. I wonder if I would have received a “A” if my name had been Mary.
February 19th, 2009 at 9:47 am
And some students near and dear to us, were quite vociferous in their “NO HELP FROM MOM” acknowledgements for their Science Project. Eh, Mouse?
When we did Cub Scouts, some of the packs would run a separate DAD’S DERBY, b/c the dads were not letting the cub scouts work on their own pinewood derby car, so as not to ruin all of dad’s hard work. This worked out for the pack, b/c they could charge the dad’s for the cars, and an entrance fee for the derby, so it was a good fundraiser, as well as giving the dad’s an outlet, and the boys a chance, to do their own work.
February 19th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Yeah, it was “*you* *keep* yourself *out* of my business!” (Mouse)
Interestingly enough, one year when Vicki and I co-chaired the middle school science fair, one of the science teachers asked us to please make sure a couple of students did NOT win because he knew that their parents had done the projects. Really, he didn’t have to worry. Our judges, all area professionals in scientific fields, were very concerned about that very issue. They were good at figuring out whether a project was done by a student or not and those two students did NOT get awards.
February 19th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
hoo-ray! for honesty in a system (finally), where parental involvement in a student-only project is actually demerited!!!
That needs to happen more often, frankly, so that kids *realize* that they need to be held responsible, and that they cannot depend on others to falsely buoy them up. It’s wonderful to know that the high standards of “this is YOUR work, YOU do it!” is a common one amongst our clan – that we all have the same high expectations for our kids to be self-sufficient! We help where/when needed, but step back and let ’em scrap their elbows & knees (figuratively & literally) so they can learn their own ways!!!
And, yes, I’ve seen where students who’ve gotten too much parental help have gotten the kudos over the kids who “did it all themselves” too many times. And it DOES hurt terribly to know that it’s your child whose feelings are hurt because s/he poured his/her heart into their project and it didn’t get recognition because a fellow student’s project had that “adult influence”.