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Tag Archives: School

The Book Of Thank You ~ Post Three: Thank You Mrs. Carter

20 Wednesday Jul 2016

Posted by duckykoren in Britain, Children, Reading, Uncategorized

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#joy, Books, Family, Reading, School, teachers

 

The year was 1971.

Mrs. Carter was my 7th grade home room school teacher.

She was grandmotherly both in nature and appearance and was always neatly dressed in a sweater and skirt. She wore gold rimmed glasses and spoke with a British accent.

Mrs. Carter introduced me the concept that reading could be fun. She was also the first person that I can remember who ever read to me.

Looking back, it’s been hard to for me to remember the first book that she read to us. If I had to make a guess, I’d say the book was THE MOUSE THAT ROARED.

It was read to us in small doses as class time permitted. Sometimes we got to listen to her read for five minutes. Sometimes we got a full half hour.

We all enjoyed listening to her lovely British cadence. I was struck by the confident manner she showed to us as she read. She seemed to actually enjoy reading aloud in front of others.

I wondered if I would ever be able to read a story to someone else.

My first introductions to reading aloud in front of others was in school and always tinged in awkwardness and embarrassment, I’m sure we all remember that uncomfortable feeling.

When I was six years old, my Father would make me read him a story from my German book of Grimm fairy tales. Then, the purpose of reading was all about practising my German and had little to do with sharing joy.

The first books that I remember reading in their entirety on my own were the TRIXIE BELDEN mystery series when I was nine years old. After that I read CHERRY AMES, STUDENT NURSE and then the NANCY DREW mysteries. I was twelve years old by the time I finished them.

As my children were growing up I tried to make it a point to read to my daughters from time to time. I read them the CHRONICALS OF NARNIA and the HARRY POTTER series. My impression of Hagrid was very well received.

Then there was the time that I was reading a particularly touching Christmas novel THE TIMEPIECE by Richard Paul Evans to my youngest daughter. While I was overcome with teary emotion, my daughter handed me one tissue after another as I wept inconsolably while reading the final chapter.

Good times.

Indeed, the joy of sharing a book with someone else can be a very good thing.

Thank you Mrs. Carter.

 

❤

My.Daily Distraction ~ Post 177: “SouthPaw”

12 Tuesday May 2015

Posted by duckykoren in Behaviour, habits, Society

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learned behaviour, School, Southpaw, Writing

image

I was in kindergarten when I first started printing the letters of the alphabet.

By grade one I could print sentences.

It was while I was doing my homework one evening that my Father noticed me holding the pencil in my left hand.

From that day forward, I was only allowed to hold a pencil in my right hand.

My Father explained that when he was a young boy in school, his teacher would separate the left handed students from the right handed students. Further, the left handed students were labelled as having poorer mental faculties.

There was no point in arguing. He was adamant that I write with my right hand.

My first attempts at writing with my right hand were awkward. With time however, I eventually got use to writing with my right hand.

However, every other activity, I continued to do with my left hand. This included throwing a ball, frisbee, even sewing.

When I grew into an adult, I finally felt comfortable enough to keep using my left arm even when my Father objected.

Then I wondered, what it was about my Father that made him so adamantly against me using my left hand.

The only answer I can come up with is ‘learned behaviour.’

He was taught to believe that it was unnatural for anyone to use their left hand.

I believe that racism, homophobia, and sexism is also learned behaviour.

So, as it happens I’ve been having a little problem with my left shoulder lately.

It’s getting harder and more painful to use, especially when I’m working.

And do you know what?

I think that this might be a good time for me to start using my right arm.

Maybe.

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 173: Benny The Brat

21 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by duckykoren in cookies, Dogs, Nova Scotia, Pets

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Benny And The Jets, CFB Greenwood, Children, Cookies, dogs, Elton John, Nova Scotia, Pets, School

image

Who knows what goes through the mind of a dog…

…or why?

Case in point:

When I was a teenager I had a Pomeranian dog. I named him Benny, after Elton John’s song Benny and the Jets.

I bought him as a puppy. He was red with a black nose. People told me that he looked like a little fox. He was adorable.

Most thankfully, Benny was a good and happy dog.

When I got married and moved to Nova Scotia, Benny came to live with me and my new husband.

We live in a modest little bungalow on the edge of a forest just outside Canadian Forces Base, Camp Greenwood in Nova Scotia.

A small public-school bordered on our backyard.

There was a pathway alongside of my house on which the little children would walk to and from school every day.

Benny was pretty good about the children and let them pass by undisturbed.

However there was a young brother and sister which for whatever reason peaked Benny’s interest.

I knew the exact moment that they were walking by the house on their way to school because it was the only time that Benny ever barked.

I could never figure out why.

One day I was in the front yard when the little brother walked by me on his way to school. He was not accompanied by his sister.

I found it interesting that Benny did not begin barking as he approached.

The little boy stopped and began talking to me.

“What’s your dogs name?” he asked me.

“His name is Benny.”

“Where’s your sister?” I asked the little chap.

“At home sick.”

“I’m sorry,” I answered. “I hope she feels better soon.”

“I like your dog,” the youngster said to me.

“I’m glad,” I replied.

“Your dog doesn’t like my sister though.”

I was suddenly intrigued by the little guy. He was telling me stuff about my dog that I wasn’t aware of.

“How do you know that Benny doesn’t like your sister?” I asked.

“The other day, me and my sister wanted to give him a cookie, and he let me give him my cookie.”

“That was very nice of you, thank you!”

“But when my sister tried to give him hers he wouldn’t take it.”

“Really?”

“No,” continued the little boy…

“… He just peed on it.”

My world came to a complete standstill as I mentally weighed what the little boy had just told me.

All these years later, I’m still wondering what was my dog thinking when he peed on that poor little girl’s cookie offering.

Then I think of that little girl.

I hope my dog’s actions didn’t scar her.

Nevertheless, it was by far the brattiest thing that Benny ever did…

…And I can’t stop myself from smiling every time I think about it.

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 172: “You Owe Me A Nickel”

20 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by duckykoren in Blogs, language, memories, Toronto, Writing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Contest, Family, German, language, Learn, money, School, Shopping, Yorkdale

My Father and I had a weekend ritual that I remember to this day.

It all started when I was six years old.

Every Saturday morning I had to go to German school from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

My parents insisted.

And yes, it sucked.

Dad would have to drive me clear across Toronto to the only public school that offered German lessons to children.

As we drove down Highway 401 and neared the Dufferin Street exit, the car would become very silent, and our eyes very sharp.

Both of us were looking for the same landmark, but who would be lucky enough to find it first?

Whoever would be the first to spot Yorkdale Shopping Centre would have the honour of holding their hand out to the other and say the following victorious words:

“You owe me a nickel.”

Sometimes I would win the nickel, and sometimes Dad would.

Yorkdale Shopping Centre was still very new at the time. In fact it was considered quite the jewel as it was one of Canada’s first enclosed malls with the most elegant stores.

Of course, a nickel is now worth a lot less than it was way back then. You could buy a whole loaf of bread for a nickel.

On the other hand, the memories of my Father and me playing this game has significantly increased in value.

In fact, I’d gladly give up all my nickels just for the chance to play this game one more time with him.

I’d even let him win.

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 171: Smelly Marker Mayhem

17 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by duckykoren in Art, Children, Parenting, Toys

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Art, Children, crafts, DIY, edudation, School

The first time that I saw scented magic markers in the toy section, I instinctively knew that this was a very bad idea.

Call it a hunch.

Giving a child a marker, and then telling him that it smells nice is openly telling the child to stick the marker up their nose. This is an inevitable disaster waiting to happen.

Besides, why does ink have to be given a phoney smell in a world where wearing a fragrance is becoming taboo in public places and allergies to chemical fragrance is on the rise?

Needless to say, I didn’t buy the markers. Not then, not ever.

Try to imagine my horror one afternoon as I was picking my youngest daughter from nursery school. I took one look at her and saw some sort of monstrosity under her pretty little nose.

She looked like someone had tattooed her upper lip with an ugly moustache.

“What happened?” I asked the first teacher that I could find.

The teacher looked at my daughter and laughed.

“Oh,” she began… “We were colouring with some new scented markers, and your daughter had to smell every single one of them.”

I was not amused.

“Will it come off?” I asked her while trying my best not to sound worried.

“It should eventually…” She replied.

No doubt, some colours may be easier to fade than others. Amid the green, purple, and orange spots under her nose were big blotches of brown and black. Obviously, their fragrances must have either been delicious or hard to detect. Why else would there be dime shaped solid circles of dark ink.

For whatever reason, I do not remember what happened in the hours or even days that followed.

It’s safe to say that what wouldn’t wash off, I would have tried to get off with cold cream. Further, I highly doubt that we made any public appearances until the worst was over with.

Dear Parents, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, etc.

I beseech you…

Do not give young children scented markers.

Their world is smelly enough.

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 128: Misdemeanours

27 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by duckykoren in Blogs, Family, Stories, Writing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Family, Friends, Gardens, Mail, Misdemeanours, parents, School, Stories, Swiss Chard

A friend and I were swapping family stories at work last night as we sorted mail bundles.

I told him a funny story about my Father, and then he told me a funny story about his Mother.

The story my friend told me, was about the time his Mother had asked him to deliver a bag of Swiss Chard to a friend of hers while on his way to school. She had just picked it from her garden, and had promised it to her friend, who lived along the way.

Later on, as he came home from school, he realized that he had accidentally thrown the bag into a garbage bin. He had not remembered that it was the bag that held the Swiss Chard.

When his Mother found out about it, she was of course, unhappy. She had to place an embarrassing phone call to her friend to explain that her son had accidentally thrown her swiss chard away.

“She never let me forget about it,” he said to me, rolling his eyes as he finished his story.

I quickly agreed with him. Indeed, there were many things I had done which my parents never let me forget either.

And that’s when I was struck with a thought…

As a child and even as an adult, both my parents loved to reminisce about the embarrassing moments in my life, that I tried so hard to forget.

Again and again, my misdemeanours were raised during conversations. There were many times that I had to bite my tongue, while they laughed and teased me about them.

These stories made me want to crawl under countless tables.

Now, both my parents have emanated into another dimension.

Oddly enough, in their absence, these stories have now become my friends.

Those unhappy memories that I spent my whole life trying to forget, have transformed into stories which bring me joy!

It brings me even greater joy to share them.

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post Ninety-Nine: Lessons From My Father… *Respect All Books*

29 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by duckykoren in Books, Crafts, Family, Family Stories, Reading, Stories

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

book covers, Books, comics, crafts, efucation, fathers, geography, Maps, Math, newspaper, Reading, School, shopping bag, wrapping paper

In the years that followed after losing my Father to cancer, I wanted to take stock of all the lessons that he had tried to teach me in life.

Did I say teach?

Drum into my head might be more accurate.

It took me years to remember what some of those lessons were.

Ten years later, slowly, very slowly one of the lessons has finally risen to the surface.

Today, as I took a newly purchased book out of my shopping bag, one of those lessons hit home as I remembered a similar scene with my Father.

The scene was of me coming home after my first day of school in grade two. I had just brought home several new school books which had just been assigned to me by my teacher. They included an elementary reader, math, and geography book.

My Father led me to the kitchen table where he had just placed my newly acquired text books. He had gathered a pencil, scissors, and ruler along with a large piece of heavy paper. His preferred choice of paper was usually a recycled piece of wrapping paper, a unwanted street map, or an old poster. However, I do remember times when a newspaper, or the funny papers would do in a pinch.

He would sit me down, and with pencil and ruler he began to measure and mark the big sheet of paper laid out before him.

With several long straight lines here and a couple of notches there he would then take the scissors and carefully cut along the pencil drawn edges. He finished off with two neat folds along the top and bottom. Then there would be another two more, one to the left and then the right sides.

…and VOILA!

We now had a book cover.

Father would then take the front cover of the school book and slip into into the neatly measured front flap. Then he would do the same with the back cover.

In teaching me the importance of these homemade book-covers, I learned many different things.

First, it taught me that books are to be handled with both care and respect. I still have books that Father gave me. The ones with these sorts of covers are still in their prime. The other books are not so lucky.

Secondly, it is indeed a noble thing to take care of something that does not belong to you. I was always proud to give all borrowed books back to the school at the end of the year, intact and with a minimal amount of blemishes.

Last, I learned that you can take something which is otherwise considered useless and unwanted and turn it into something with the potential to be both useful and meaningful. That accounts for the used wrapping paper, old street maps, and last weeks Saturday comic section from the newspaper.

And there you have it. It only took ten years to sort this particular lesson out, but it finally hit home.

I only hope I don’t have to wait another ten years till I figure out the next lesson.

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post Ninety-Two: Got Apples?

22 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by duckykoren in Diet, Family, Nutrition, Stories

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Apples, Birthday, blogs, cross-stich, Diet, fathers, Fruit, hungry, markets, nutrition, purse, refrigerator, School, Sister

Since this week would have been my father’s eighty-third birthday, I have decided to write a few celebratory words…

…or maybe not so few,

…in his honour.

This story begins way back when I was still a young teenager.

I can still recall the times that I would go to a refrigerator in search of a snack.

Upon hearing the fridge door open, dad who was usually upstairs, would call down to me:

“What are you doing in the fridge?”

“I’m hungry,” I would reply.

“Eat an apple,” he would then tell me.

“I don’t want an apple…” I’d answer.

“Then you’re not hungry.”

I would then proceed to linger in the fridge for a few more seconds. Then finding nothing of interest, I’d close the fridge door and walked away, disappointed and…

…apple-less.

Let me state, that our humble fridge never lacked for apples. Father did not believe in the regular two or five pound bags.

He brought home apples by the bushel, fresh from our downtown market.

We were a family of three: my Father, myself and my little sister.

That’s a lot of apples for just three people.

In turn, each morning before school, I would fill my large purse with apples and gleefully hand them out to friends during break.

Still, somehow we never ran out of apples.

And so… years later, as a memento of those days, I cross-stitched the apple sampler you see above and gave it to dad as a father’s day gift in 1990. He hung it in his kitchen. And there it remained until after he passed away, when it was ultimately returned to me.

It now hangs in my dining room, and continues to bring me joy to this day… In the week my father would have turned eighty-three.

Now, if you’ll excuse me… to celebrate the life of my father, I am now off in search of an apple…

…Even though I’m not hungry.

I miss you Dad.

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 44: Regrets, I’ve Had A Few

01 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by duckykoren in Authors, Books, Education, Entertainment, Movies, Reading, Religion

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Baptist, Buddhism, Buddhist, Censorship, Choir, Dalai Lama, Decisions, Fairytales, Fantasy, Fiction, Harry Potter, J.K. Rawlings, Minister, Regrets, School, Sunday School

We’ve all had regrets in life.

My first major regret happened when I was seventeen years old although I did not realize my missed opportunity until a decade later.

On a Friday in November 1976 during my grade twelve world religions class, our teacher announced that he had an extra curricular activity that he wanted us, his class, to participate in.

Our mission was to find our way downtown to St. John’s Anglican Church that Sunday evening where the Dalai Lama would be making an unprecedented appearance.

Did I go?

No.

I had never heard of the Dalai Lama, nor did I have any interest in learning about the Buddhist religion.

Older and wiser now almost forty years later, and I have yet to forgive myself.

Several years back I told a coworker this story.

She then told me that her young daughter along with her school choir had been recently invited to sing for the Dalai Lama during his visit to Canada.

She then told me that she did to allow her daughter to go because she did not want her daughter’s Christian beliefs confused by anything that the Dalai Lama had to say.

I told her that was a very bad call on her part. There is a good chance that her daughter will have issues about her Mother’s decision not to let her sing with her school choir for the Dalai Lama.

Think of the insight she would have gained by listening to his live and engaging message on peace, love and forgiveness. His life’s experiences alone carry lessons that we can all learn from.

Several years ago, I had a problem with any parent who forbade their children from reading J.K. Rawlings HARRY POTTER series. Similarly, they were not allowed to see the movies either.

I grew up in a Baptist family. My grandfather was a Baptist Minister. All my cousins regularly attended Sunday School, no exceptions.

However, our entire family revelled in fairytales and movies even if the storyline included witches and spells and potions.

I am grateful for the fact, that all the adults in our family had enough confidence in us, their children, nieces and nephews that we would accept the offered movie or storyline for what it was:

A work of fiction.

There was never any question of what was reality and what was sheer imagination.

So began the lessons to maturely make decisions for ourselves.

And these lessons continue to this day.

I hope the same for you and yours.

My.Daily.Diversion Post 4: My Colourful 1st Life Lesson

04 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by duckykoren in Childhood, Children, Education, Society

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Candy, Color, Colour, Doctors, Education, Green, Learning, Lollipop, School, Society

My first memories of colours, candy, and candy colours were the lollipops that were dispensed by my doctor after every visit.

I was a very young four years old when my doctor would always ask after each visit:

“And what colour of lollipop would you like?”

I was so young at that time I had not yet learned about colours and their different names.

Getting no answer, the doctor then assuming that I had no preference always went to the default colour…

…green.

Obviously, everyone went for the red and the purple ones.

Hence, there was always an over abundance of green lollipops in his lollipop bowl.

Little did he know that I didn’t care for green lollipops.

I had absolutely had my fill of them.

All I ever got was green lollipops.

And finally one day at nursery school I finally began to understand what the word “colour” was all about.

I even learned the name of a color and save this epiphany for my next trip to the doctor.

At long last game the day when once again took me for a visit to the doctor.

I eagerly waited for the moment he would ask me what color of lollipop I would like to have.

When he finally held the bowl out to me he asked what color lollipop I would like,

I looked into his eyes and said…

“Green.”

It’s hard to describe how utterly heartbroken I was when I was handed yet another green lollipop.

“And what do you say for the lollipop?”

Mother asked me as I took the ugly green lollipop from the doctor…

“Thank you,” I said trying to muster a smile.

1st life lesson learned by me in 1963 as my Mother drove me home while I enjoyed my green lollipop:

What’s the big deal about adults and colour?

… Because even green lollipops can taste wonderful.

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