Wow, I too had trouble w/the nun who taught me math in the 3rd grade. I believe that her bizzare behavior resulted in my having a math block that lasted till college and still rears its ugly head once in a while. Sometimes I panic when I think that I'm going to have to deal w/numbers.
Our family moved every school year to a different state for my dad's job and we were new to St. Pancratious school in CA. To make things worse, I was terribly shy and had a hard time being the center of attention as is often required to participate in class. My father always checked over my homework and worked w/me so that all of my answers were correct, however, I could not reproduce the same results in class. I think this is why sister had it in for me. That, or possibly b/c my dad was regularly listed in the bulletin for being one of the 5 top donors. He was very generous and gave 20% off the top to the church even though we lived very modestly and in a rented house. A priest once told me that was the old-fashioned rule of tithing and had something to do w/agriculture. Perhaps sister felt I had it too easy in life.
Sister (am blocked re: her name) made it a habit to write a math problem (usually long division) on the board at the start of math class then called me up to work on it as she proceded to give the lesson to the other students. I could not stand to be on display and soon the numbers made no sense at all. I simply made up numbers to write so that I at least looked productive. My memory is that I stayed up there through the entire lesson. Sometimes, at the end of class I was supposed to explain my work. In retrospect, I was in fact, the entertainment!
My parents never questioned the actions of a religious. Thank God, by 4th grade sister was out of my life and I had made some friends.
Hello Lady Lilac: I am a veteran of St.Rita's and I was curious about when you attended. I was there grade 1 through 8 and graduated in 1958. Your experience sounds similar to mine. Unfortunately, as a boy, it was considered all right to whack me when I didn't do homework or skipped school, and I skipped school a lot! Sister Mary Magdalene ("Brickface" to us) fudged on my truancy record to get me out of the school. She pretended my absences were divided into "sessions," (two a day) and cut my absences in half so I could graduate. I used to go to the library or the zoo or the museum and tag along with school groups. Close enough to look like I might be with them but not so close a teacher would ask me who I was with. It was a very subtle maneuver and it made me invisible to cops and truant officers . I got most of my education that way, although I got great reading and writing training in the early years at St Rita's. My grades were off the charts because of all the time I spent at the library and museum. Brickface had to get me out of the school because it was hard to explain why a kid that never came to school had such a wide-ranging education. It was better than home schooling. At home, two brothers and a sister were ahead of me at St. Rita's and they taught me to read long before I got to school, and because I was using the same books they used, I got bored real fast.
Was Carbone's variety store at the corner of Thorndike and Harrison Avenue still there when you attended? I have adult friends that think I made "Chum Gum" up.
My grade school years were great. We had Sisters of Providence, and they were very loving and caring. During 6th grade we had an older nun that could not handle the boys, so the 9 boys left and spent the rest of the year in the 8th grade room with the principle. You know, I think...as the principle goes....so goes the school. I never truly appreciated how Sister Rita Ann ran the school, but she did not tolerate any mistreatment by the sisters. She taught 8th grade and was the art teacher. Very modern woman. One of the first to stop wearing a habit. I also had her as an art teacher in the All girls HS I went to. It is amazing what a lasting affect she had on my life. She is now in the infirmary at St. Marys of the Woods, in Terre Haute, Indiana suffering from Alzheimers. The Sisters gave their lives to teaching, having no family of their own. Devoting their lives to God. I personally thank God everyday for their loving guidance.
I went to St. Rita's too from kindergarten to grade 3. It's great to find others who attended as well. I didn't speak English when I went to kindergarten. The nuns called me by the English version of my name which I have used ever since. It was frightening in the beginning because I didn't understand what they were saying and they were so stern. I think they scared me into learning.
Anyway due to my language barrier, I seemed to get into trouble and once I was punished by having to sit in the big old dark auditorium alone. That stayed with me for a long time. Sometimes though I would use the language barrier to my advantage and just ignore them. I became quite wiley.
The phonics, flash cards, and Palmer Method really worked for me. When we moved away from Harrison Avenue, I was placed in the advanced fourth grade class and then went on to Latin School.
The neighborhood has so changed. St. Philip's and St. Patrick's churches are gone along with St. Rita's. Blanchard's and Carbone's are gone too. The tenement we lived on Harrison Ave had a condemend sign on it a few years ago. The large apartment complex at the corner of Harrison and Lenox was gone and the old Green Shoe is now the Boston Water & Sewer Commission. Lower Roxbury is a shadow of itself when the area in the 1950s was teeming with people.
When people notice the Palmer "r" in my hand writing sometimes they think it is an "n", but those in the know about Catholic school education.
As we learned the different letters using the Palmer method, we had to do exercises too...like making a series of helical spirals trying to make them within the lines moving our whole hand, not just the fingers. Being left handed, I had a problem with the proper grip on the pencil. Instead of the eraser end pointing over my left shoulder, it pointed way out away from me. Soon sister gave up on trying to correct this.
These too were Sisters of St. Joseph at St. Rose of Lima School, York, PA. Their headgear consisted of a white cylinder on their head topped with a black veil held in place so as to form a white triangle in front just above the forehead.
