Monday Morning Musings

Posted on December 16, 2019 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

Stepping back in time

 

“It’s elementary, my dear Watson.”

Sherlock Holmes.

When Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective Sherlock Holmes was explaining to his good friend John A. Watson the nature of his latest deduction, he supposedly employed this well- known phrase.

In my wildest dreams, I could never have imagined turning back the clock some 60 years, heading back to grade school. There are many days when I wake up in this strange, cold, treeless landscape and wonder how I got here. When I look back on this chapter of my life when I get old (!) or grow up, it will be with a sense of astonishment and gratitude.

For most of us, our childhood days stay safely buried somewhere in the recesses of our brains. Yes, from time to time, something will happen , like attending a Christmas concert for one of the grandchildren, that will awaken memories long dormant. For some of us, childhood was blissful but not everyone was that lucky. Some of us passed through our school years relatively unscathed while others, for personal or family reasons, struggled to gain traction.

I was one of the lucky ones. I guess I could be accused of being an aging Pollyanna who pretends that all was sweetness and light oh so many years ago. I enjoyed my school years. I learned a few things along the way but the best thing is that I made some lifelong friends. Several of us are planning a class reunion to celebrate our graduation from high school 50 years ago. Our planning meetings are filled with laughter and nostalgia, two of the best tonics known to mankind/womankind.

I am still learning about political correctness!

So, what’s it like to step back in time and walk the halls of a school as a teacher in 2019? Some things never change as kids will be kids. Teaching in a northern community has additional challenges but fundamentally, schools still look and feel the same as they did when I was a youngster. I’m not sure that this is a good thing because in some ways, education is being delivered the same way as it has for a very long time.

I am very fortunate to have been blessed with a good deal of energy because you simply could not survive teaching 10 and 11 year olds without vast stores of energy… and patience. Every day feels like a mini marathon. Teaching up north also requires adaptability and creativity. I can see all you active and retired teachers nodding your heads suggesting that it has been forever thus but I can assure you that every period of every day seems to bring a surprise. The best laid plans (of mice and men) seem to get derailed with shocking regularity. If you can’t pivot like Steve Nash, you’re in big trouble.

I was never an arts and crafts kind of person but when Christmas comes a calling, hauling out art supplies is a mandatory survival mechanism at the elementary level. On Friday, we did a project requiring construction paper, scissors, markers, chalk, glue sticks, and scotch tape. Try to imagine putting these weapons of mass destruction in the hands of one so inept as me. Does scotch tape come with a bottle of scotch?!

The hallways of the school have become an indoor hopscotch track. Just about every corridor has a set of objects pasted to the floors (letters of the alphabet/ Neil Armstrong’s steps on the moon) for children and adults young at heart to jump/skip their way to and from class. In an ultra- cold climate, this is a very practical way to get some exercise especially on these long, dark winter days.

I was alone in the gym on Friday afternoon. I was waiting for other members of the social committee to arrive to set up the stage for the Christmas concert happening today. There was a basketball in the corner. I can’t remember the last time that I shot hoops but I was instantly transported back to the Parish Centre in my home town 50 or more years ago when shooting hoops was something you did when you weren’t hanging around “the alleys” ( the local bowling alley and pool hall).

One thing that has changed since dinosaurs roamed the earth is the math curriculum. I won’t even begin to try and describe this latest version of “new math”. I can and I must learn how to do math in new, bizarre ways. A simple multiplication problem that we learned to solve in one step, now requires a flow chart that would befuddle Einstein.

While I’ve had some difficult days and will likely have several more, it is kind of cool getting to relive ones youth in a very special part of the world. The students are starting to come around or maybe it’s me who’s doing the coming around.

However you slice it, it’s elementary!

Have a great week.