R
reen12
Guest
If others have memories - of the assistance that the Sisters, or the Brothers, gave to them -
I invite them to share their own memories. I share my own, below.
I don’t think that I would have any sense of spirituality, whatsoever, had it not been for the Sisters who taught me.
I’m always giving Catholicism a hard time.
Yet it is not fair, [ever indulging *l’esprit critique,] while never averring to the blessings that I did receive.
-the religious, who taught me, gave me a sense of the sacred
-they taught me prayers, to be committed to memory, that I could say - even when the mind and heart are exhausted by grief, in great loss.
-any clarity of expression, in that which I compose, is a direct reflection of their work -
in having taught me how to gather thought, and how to present same, clearly.
Right down to the minutia, in this regard.
[pen, never pencil - no ragged sheet, torn from a notebook.]
This demostrates a lack of respect - for the one correcting the paper, and a lack of self-respect,
that such carelessness would obtain.
Only complete sentences were acceptable.
Don’t ‘crowd’ work on a small area of a page.
All of this training has been of invaluable help to me, over many decades.
In college, one of the Sisters handed back a short essay, that I had written,
on Wuthering Heights, [one of my better efforts] - with an A crossed out, and then
a B crossed out - leaving me with a grade of C, because I had misspelled three words,
in a page and a half of text.
I was annoyed.
If I had known that these were spelled incorrectly, I would have consulted a dictionary -
but I did not at all feel that this was unfair. It surely got the point across.
Misspelled words, on work handed in, is simply unacceptable practice.
I am to be responsible for the entire quality of work turned in.
To this date, I can neither spell, nor punctuate, correctly. [The Sisters tried, mightily,
to teach me, in this regard, but I simply couldn’t wrap my mind around what was being taught.]
If an assignment was due, on a Tuesday morning - it meant Tuesday morning.
The Sisters - from kindergarten through college - were always well prepared for their classes.
They did not ask of me - what they failed to ask of themselves.
Surely students, as all others, learn far more - from example given - than from
mere urgings to meet a certain standard.
And as I was about to flunk the French regents exam, the sister who taught the
French language, confronted me in the school hallway, saying, in a dry tone:
“You know, of course, that you’re going to flunk French.” Copious tears followed,
as I explained to her that I had been spending all my time trying to understand geometry.
Sister told me to go home, to take no books with me, to have a quiet evening, and
to show up, in her classroom, the next day, after school. Sister tutored me, and I did
very well in this exam. She passed away, about 5 years ago, and I had written her a note,
before she died, expressing my gratitude to her, for her kindness to me - telling Sister
how much some knowledge of the French language, had added to my life - as life went forward.
I did look up the spelling of ‘kindergarten,’ ‘minutia,’ and ‘misspelled,’ in writing this. The Sisters would be pleased.
Reward each of these Sisters, God, please. I am grateful to them.
reen12
I invite them to share their own memories. I share my own, below.
I don’t think that I would have any sense of spirituality, whatsoever, had it not been for the Sisters who taught me.
I’m always giving Catholicism a hard time.
Yet it is not fair, [ever indulging *l’esprit critique,] while never averring to the blessings that I did receive.
-the religious, who taught me, gave me a sense of the sacred
-they taught me prayers, to be committed to memory, that I could say - even when the mind and heart are exhausted by grief, in great loss.
-any clarity of expression, in that which I compose, is a direct reflection of their work -
in having taught me how to gather thought, and how to present same, clearly.
Right down to the minutia, in this regard.
[pen, never pencil - no ragged sheet, torn from a notebook.]
This demostrates a lack of respect - for the one correcting the paper, and a lack of self-respect,
that such carelessness would obtain.
Only complete sentences were acceptable.
Don’t ‘crowd’ work on a small area of a page.
All of this training has been of invaluable help to me, over many decades.
In college, one of the Sisters handed back a short essay, that I had written,
on Wuthering Heights, [one of my better efforts] - with an A crossed out, and then
a B crossed out - leaving me with a grade of C, because I had misspelled three words,
in a page and a half of text.
I was annoyed.
If I had known that these were spelled incorrectly, I would have consulted a dictionary -
but I did not at all feel that this was unfair. It surely got the point across.
Misspelled words, on work handed in, is simply unacceptable practice.
I am to be responsible for the entire quality of work turned in.
To this date, I can neither spell, nor punctuate, correctly. [The Sisters tried, mightily,
to teach me, in this regard, but I simply couldn’t wrap my mind around what was being taught.]
If an assignment was due, on a Tuesday morning - it meant Tuesday morning.
The Sisters - from kindergarten through college - were always well prepared for their classes.
They did not ask of me - what they failed to ask of themselves.
Surely students, as all others, learn far more - from example given - than from
mere urgings to meet a certain standard.
And as I was about to flunk the French regents exam, the sister who taught the
French language, confronted me in the school hallway, saying, in a dry tone:
“You know, of course, that you’re going to flunk French.” Copious tears followed,
as I explained to her that I had been spending all my time trying to understand geometry.
Sister told me to go home, to take no books with me, to have a quiet evening, and
to show up, in her classroom, the next day, after school. Sister tutored me, and I did
very well in this exam. She passed away, about 5 years ago, and I had written her a note,
before she died, expressing my gratitude to her, for her kindness to me - telling Sister
how much some knowledge of the French language, had added to my life - as life went forward.
I did look up the spelling of ‘kindergarten,’ ‘minutia,’ and ‘misspelled,’ in writing this. The Sisters would be pleased.
Reward each of these Sisters, God, please. I am grateful to them.
reen12
…so I wont repeat my memories here.
…nor has the ‘excommunication’ ever been lifted!
…so give us a hard time wherever we proclaim that it is flat, which is probably quite often:thumbsup: I am killing myself laughin here Reen as I am not too sure at all it was Galilleo who first thought that the world was round!
Especially, when we went down to the Church for Mass. No gum chewing was allowed. We marched in lines. The boys shirts were straightened… and hair combed. The girls skirts were “checked” for proper and respectable length, and so forth. They were no less meticulous in the classrooms.