Quote:
Originally Posted by synchrocone
(Post 6589146)
I find it really interesting to visualisizing so many kids in a school when I could remember only maybe 15students in our class one year in 87-88.
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Yeah, Strathcona back then was huge. I cannot imagine how they kept everybody together. No e-mail between teachers. I don't even recall there being telephones in classrooms like they have now.
Anyway, Strathcona had some really cool teachers back then. My favourite teacher was the music teacher. Mr. Theo Goldberg. He's now Dr. Goldberg. I hear he's still alive. Anyway, I met him later on in life at UBC of all places and he still remembered me. He's a prof with the UBC Music Education Department. Back when he was my grade 4 home room teacher, he drove a green (I think) Mustang. He was so proud of it that he used it as often as he could in his lessons (don't ask how). He drew a picture of it on the board and tied it to who knows what music lesson. Fond memories include him getting us to play and sing the greatest hit of all time (so we thought), "Windy". Dr. Goldberg was always into leading edge technology - synthesizers and all kinds of electronic gadgets. He had this neat electronic board that had the musical staff etched on it. It was touch sensitive and played back the note you touched on the board. Thinking about it now, it must have been way ahead of its time. He also created a school musical based on a famous old Chinese song. The musical was called Flute Island and it involved a huge amount of kids. That man really made a huge impact on me. Rumours were he had something special in the back of his classroom. Only a few people ever saw this thing. My wife actually remembers what it was......... a small still. LOL. He was brewing something back there. Hey, it could have been water, you know. He wasn't the science teacher though. And no, it wasn't a coffee maker, either.
Another great teacher was Mr. Giuriato (I hope I got the spelling right). I can go on forever with these teachers, but there was one scary teacher all students at the school feared. I'm not going to say her name, because just mentioning it name gives me the creeps. She was like the Cruella De Vil of Strathcona. She had tonnes of make up on and smoked like there was no tomorrow. She was tough on the boys. Almost like she hated men and wanted to destroy all signs of maleness in us. Her favourite move was to literally drag boys down the hall and to the office by their ears. Granted most of us skinny Asian boys weighed 45 pounds soaking wet, but I never thought ears could hold that much weight. She favoured the girls. She always had her favourite girls go to the store to buy her cigarettes and chocolate bars.
Corporal punishment. Yep, it was rampant back then. I think they put an end to corporal punishment, because the principals were having way too much fun hurting kids.
Of all the pranks I pulled at school, I never got caught. Never got the strap, except by mistake. I used to go home for lunch, because lunch hour was just that - one hour. One day I got back to school to see a whole bunch of kids crowded around the entry way. A female teacher was screaming at the kids. She was like losing it. Being curious, I made my way to the front to see what was going on. All I heard then was, "You, you, you, and you (pointing at me) come with me!" Apparently, nobody opened the door for her. Back then, that was a sign of disrespect. So here I was following a bunch of other boys on the way to the office. The principal gets out the leather strap. Crap, I remember that thing to this day. It was huge and not like a belt. It was solid with a cross pattern on the leather surface. Up to that point, I had only heard scary stories about the strap. We were told not to move our hands, because if the principal missed, he would give you the strap twice. All of us prayed he would not miss and hit us square on the hands. The last thing you want is for him to get just a little piece of your hand like your pinky. We all tried to be tough and held our tears back, but it hurt so much tears automatically ran out. "Now let that be a lesson to you!" I remember him saying. We apologized to the female teacher and went immediately to the washroom to try and wash the pain away. I recall the mark that was left on the palm of my hand.
Remembering further back, I recall a very nice lady. She had a very weird name, perhaps Mrs. Fong-Dickman? She was Asian, I think and was one of the Kindergarten teachers at Strath. She was so nice to the kids. I remember being sick one day. I ended up barfing all over her shoes and feet. I thought she was going to scream, but she calmly took her shoes off, wiped the stuff off her feet and continued to rub my back to make me feel better. Kindergarten was so neat. It was an all day Kindergarten. It had to because most of the mothers in the neighbourhood worked. I remember nap time. Man, was it good. We went to our cubby and pulled out our pillows and blankets. We slept to the teacher's singing. I rarely slept, but it was very relaxing. I think we should all have nap time at work.
Anyway, this post is getting way too long.
I wanted to tell you a story about my first love when I was in grade three. She was a native girl who I thought was an Indian princess. So naive and innocent back then.
