Each Day Already is a Challenge

A Wandering Mind

Isn't it funny, how the mind wanders? Last night in my dreams, I had a profound thought, something about which I knew I should write. In the old days, I would have wakened, turned on the light beside my bed and written that thought down in the notebook that always sat on the nightstand beside my bed. But that was before fibromyalgia hit. Now when I sleep, I sleep deeply. The same thoughts race across my mind in my sleep, but I cannot or do not waken to write them down. Sometimes I remember them later. Sometimes they are lost for a day or a week or a month. Sometimes they never resurface.

Try as I might, I cannot remember what was so important last night in my dreams. But in pondering, other thoughts have raced to be first in line.

For some reason, I remembered learning to write in cursive. Second grade. Mrs. Clauser. I'm left handed, but I don't put my paper at funny angles to write, nor do I curl up my hand upside-down as some left handers do. That's thanks to Mrs. Clauser. She placed one of those pink erasers on my hand as I practiced writing. If the eraser fell off - because I was allowing my hand to take up a funny position - she would come by my desk, slap my hand and put the eraser back in place.

Oddly enough, I learned to write upside-down almost as well as I learned to write right-side up. I practiced that at home, though. I also learned to write backwards.

Perhaps that's why it didn't come as a surprise when Derek learned to recognize the alphabet upside down just as easily as right side up. What did come as a surprise was that it was at the age of two that he could do that.

Back then, we called each other whatever our names would be backwards. It was our code, one we thought no one would crack. Nyliram was my name backwards. I answered to that for years.

See where the mind goes...

When I was called to write on the chalkboard, I discovered that I could write with either my right or left hand. For some reason, making bigger strokes across the chalkboard allowed me to write with either hand. I never could write on paper with my right hand, because I couldn't get the positioning of the pen or pencil right. But on the chalkboard, I wrote with either hand. (My friends thought that was really cool. )

School funding and school costs crossed my mind as I was trying to bring that profound thought from my dreams. Strange. Schools never seem to have enough money anymore. They're always complaining about that, cutting programs, wanting to raise taxes.

Back in the dinosaur days when I was a kid, we didn't need as many administrators. We did didn't need as many of any school employees, actually. We had one secretary in my elementary school, a school of about 600 kids from kindergarten through fifth grade. There were no computers to keep track of attendance or grades. All of that was done manually. At lunch time, the school secretary joined the teachers in the lounge. I often ate my lunch in the office. I was a fifth grader and a patrol, and my "job" was to answer the school phones and to be there in case a visitor came in while the staff ate lunch.

Fifth grade patrols ate their lunches with the younger kids, so the teachers could eat together. Afterwards on the playground, maybe one or two teachers would be assigned to watching. But the fifth grade patrols were to watch out for the younger kids. I was orginally assigned to a second grade class, but they were almost as big as me and didn't really want to listen.

That's why my permanent assignment ended up being that I answering phones in the office. Adults usually called or dropped by the office during lunch time. And adults were easier for me to handle.

In Texas in about 97-98, I used to have to pick up my niece from her school to take her to dentist appointments and such. Her elementary school had about six office personnel in a school no bigger than the one where I went. I always wondered why there were so many...

We didn't have a full time music teacher. For "regular" music, our regular teachers were supposed to be able to teach us. That was part of being an elementary school teacher! But we also had a real music teacher who came by about two days a week. The other days, he spent at other elementary schools in our district. Two at another school and one at a smaller one. So one music teacher was shared by three schools. If today's schools did that, they could save money. Right. Rather than considering going back to something like this, they choose to just do away with music teachers. Dumb.

Same thing with art teachers. In elementary school, our regular teachers had to know something about teaching art too. But we had a real art teacher who came by once a week for special projects. Schools could do that today too, keeping art as something important in schools, instead of just dumping it.

Some kids took up playing instruments so that they could get out of regular classes a few times a week for lessons. That wasn't my reason for deciding to play the violin. Frankly, I don't know why I ended up playing the violin. Perhaps it was because of the fiddle player I watched on The Lawrence Welk Show. Or perhaps it was the least expensive choice for my parents. I really don't know. But I did play it from 2nd grade through 12th grade...and haven't really touched a violin since. I was good...but I walked away from it.

Anyway, I was wondering what the kids did who didn't take lessons. I never really thought about that before until today. They had to do something... I just never knew (or cared, I guess) what.

Our junior and senior high schools also had less personnel than today's schools. And, as a baby boomer, my schools were filled with kids, sometimes in places where there were not supposed to be classes. (Like basements!) And yet, there could be fewer staff than today. One reason? We were respectful of adults. They didn't need lots of folks to keep us in line.

In high school, we had a principal and one vice principal who were able to handle a school with over 2500 kids. They also handled the first school strike while I was there, SDS girls streaking topless through the hallways and a race riot. Oh, I imagine they might have called on a few local cops now and then to help out, but normally they were able to handle eveything quite nicely. We certainly didn't have a regular cop on duty.

I remember when I was in Florida (86-97)...and heard that one high school nearby had four vice principals for a school with 1200 kids. Plus a full time truancy officer. I wondered what all those vice principals did...

So that's where the mind wandered this morning. I still have no idea what I was thinking last night in my dreams that seemed so important. Perhaps it will come to me again. Perhaps not.