Life Matters - July 26, 2023
Possibly over-dignified for the six years of my age, I sat stiffly on my grade one school desk at Western Public where we had been instructed to sit for a class recitation of “Humpty Dumpty” and then to fall off our desks onto the school house floor while reciting the part where that leggy egg “had a great fall” and he fell off the wall. My immature dignity was severely bruised and my stiff body felt so when I attempted to fall off my desk with only minimal injury to emotional life and stiffened limbs. Being a Dutchified boy going to an English-speaking school my fears had been calmed by ideas like being a “big boy” now, “old” enough to go to school, with my small-child brain paying special attention to the “old” and the “big.” This “acting out” of nursery rhymes, however, felt more demeaning and degrading than it did “old enough for school” and being a “big boy now.” As did the reading lessons. And the reading problems in arithmetic. And any other class requiring comprehensive reading skills. I don’t recall my small-child brain making all those connections, but what I did have was a boundless desire to learn everything in general and reading in particular. We learned the ABCs and finally one day we 30 to 40 first graders were given reading books. I was as fascinated by the pictures as I was dumbfounded by my lack of understanding what the rows of letters meant beyond the groups of letters forming words and being able to say the alphabetical names of letters. I don’t know what I expected, I just knew I liked the pictures but not the words, still not being able to read.
I don’t know for sure but suspect that the “acting out” of nursery rhymes had something to do with the look/say method having pushed out the phonics method for teaching young students to read. The look/say method, depending on looking (no surprise here) then saying what we see, gave us such “literary gems” as the first chapter of Dick and Jane Away We Go: Jump up Sally. Jump up. Come Sally. Jump up. Jump up Tim. Jump up. Up, up, up. Jump up. Look, Dick. See Sally and Tim. Funny, funny Sally. Funny, funny Tim.”
If that little “gem” makes no sense without pictures, you’re not alone, that is the point of look/say, as Bonnie Bader instructs “parents” and educators, “in the first page under the cover with a heading called Picture Clues: Use the pictures in this book to tell the story. Have the child go through the book, retelling the story by just looking at the pictures.” Methinks following that instruction with 30 to 40 well-behaved first-graders would take the patience of Job without even allowing for human nature. Bring in the nature of first graders to be rather easily intimidated in the presence of “big people” who think a certain first grader should know something he doesn’t and ... well ... I can still feel for that clueless little guy.
I was especially clueless when Dick, Jane and Sally were at the beach, building sand castles, and we came upon a new word for the tapered small red bucket the children were packing with sand then plopping it upside down and lifting it to reveal another “castle.” It was my turn to read out loud in class and with a now familiar dread I came upon a new word. Teacher dutifully pointed at a specific portion of the picture and asked, “What is this?” “Bucket,” I said and kept on reading the following, formerly memorized, words. Teacher stopped me. “There is another word for bucket,” she said. I was dumbfounded. In Pennsylvania Dutch, it was a “kiwel,” in English it was a “bucket.” I drew a blank. “Pail,” says teacher, clearly and distinctly, “The word is pail.”
The next day in reading class and my turn to read, there was that word again ... I drew a blank ... “bucket,” I said hurriedly and kept on “reading.” Teacher stopped me, “There’s another word for bucket,” she said with an edgy patience in her voice that continued as she informed me, “The word is pail.” The next day, there was that word again. I had learned not to say “bucket.” The edge in teacher’s voice had told me not to try that one again. Unbelievable. I couldn’t think of the word again. Teacher told me again and eventually my brain acquiesced that a bucket could be called a pail.
My brain also acquiesced that a “kiwel” is still a kiwel no matter what handle it flies by. Got it.
Life Matters!