Education Takes Many Twists

 

I have always enjoyed my school days, but sometimes parental interventions were not appreciated.  The beginnings of my education probably were different than many of you. Let me explain.

I started the formal schooling part of my life in the school district of Burwalde, MB, a few kilometers from Winkler. However, my informal education had begun much earlier. I am the last of twelve siblings, and therefore was able to learn much from them. When I started kindergarten I already could read reasonably well and knew about the geography of North America. Then, because my oldest brother was in the Royal Canadian Air Force, the family kept track of where he was stationed.

“Kindergarten” was a short period of time from Easter until the end of the year, just enough time to get me and the other classmates into the mode of what school was all about. I enjoyed this setting.

The summer after my kindergarten experience, my dad retired from public school teaching and moved the family to Chilliwack, BC.  How the next step happened, I really do not know, but when school started in fall, I was placed into the grade two class. I skipped the entire first grade.  I really never gave it a thought, but fit right in with my grade twos, except that I was now the youngest in the class.

I felt I was doing quite well, but every so often dad would quiz me about my “studies”.  My reports were always positive, both from me and from my teachers via our report cards.

Dad would occasionally ask how my school  subjects were going. I think he may have missed the classroom interactions. One day dad asked me about my spelling. I told him I had only two wrong.  Dad thought that I should have all the words correct, having several wrong just did not cut it. He quizzed me about my spelling for several weeks. My answer was always, “Just two wrong”. Then one day he asked a second question, “How many words in your tests?” Oh, oh, I was caught!  I sheepishly told him I only had two words on each day’s quiz. From that day on, after we had done our chores and finished supper, dad checked up on my spelling and drilled me on the words for each quiz.

I was embarrassed but I soon realized that a bit of work meant my spelling greatly improved. In fact, throughout my teaching and writing careers, I have found that correct spelling came easily. Thanks to my father, I rarely make a mistake in spelling a word.