Daycare

Mike’s ears were ringing as he left the daycare where he worked. As a teen aged boy, he had gone to his share of rock concerts, and he’d thought the loud music was really bad, but it was nothing compared to the screams of the five to twelve year-olds at the center. The noise those little monkeys (as Mike called them when none of his co-workers were around) made was excruciating after half an hour, but staying for five hours like he had to was a new kind of hell.

  Then there was the fights, blood, pee, broken toys added to the mayhem. There was not one decent kid in the bunch. The new ones that started out okay always turned into one of the monkeys given enough time. It was as if the kids knew they were being abandoned by their parents and they were releasing all of their frustration on everything and everyone around them. Aaahh, the parents; they’re another case in and of themselves: rude, self-absorbed, inconsiderate monkeys in suits.


Monkeys, each and everyone, making more monkeys, then they all wonder why no one acts like a decent human being.

Catherine Griffith

Amentia: A-m-e-n-t-i-a. Catherine wrote out the final word on her spelling list which she would take home and study. It was an interesting looking word: she had no idea what it meant though.
Her teacher, Ms. Hoper’s, never taught them what the words meant; she just concentrated on getting her students to pass the test, nothing more. If they passed the test then forgot all the word the next week, it was okay with her. It didn’t reflect on her work at all.
Catherine finished writing the word, then slipping her hand into her desk and felt around for her thesaurus. Finding it she quietly pulled it out, she didn’t want to disturb the rest of the class, who had not finished their lists yet.
Thumbing through the worn book, she found amentia. It said the synonyms were mental defect, and mental retardation.
She couldn’t resist a smile. She could use the word amentia as an insult towards someone and they’d probably have no idea what it meant, and thereby prove her point.
An involuntary giggle escaped Catherine’s throat which did not go unnoticed by Ms. Hoper.
“Would you mind sharing with use what is so funny Miss Griffith?”
“Hmm,” the girl looked up.
Humpbacked Ms. Hoper limped towards the girl, her cane making a loud click on the tiled floor, followed by the soft shuffling sound of her tan leather shoes.
“What is it that is so amusing that you find it necessary to ignore your spelling in order to enjoy it?”
“But, I’m done with my spelling words, I was just-
“Then you should have sat still until the rest of the class was finished as well.”
“But-
“‘But’ nothing,” the teacher snatched away the Thesaurus without even looking to see what it was. “You will sit still, hands folded on your desk, facing straight ahead until the end of the lesson. Then you will remain in class for the next recess for your disrespectfulness.”
“Aren’t you behaving rather like someone with amentia?” Catherine ventured. “You don’t even know what I was doing.”
“For speaking in class, you will have lunch here as well.”
Catherine suppressed another giggle. That old troll clearly didn’t know what she had said: otherwise she would have been in a lot more trouble than staying in class for lunch.

When They First Met

Jessica was exited the High School bus. She and her family had just moved into town and this was her first day at school. She came up to the brick building that resembled a prison; it even had bars in the windows.
As she stepped inside, the over-cooled air seemed to assault the exposed skin on her face, arms and hands. Thank goodness she had been thoughtful enough to wear jeans today.
She managed to find her first class without too much difficulty, and took a seat just moments before the bell rang; which didn't give anyone time to speak to her, and that was okay with her.
Jessica had always gone to public school, but she had never been able to find any long lasting friendships. She had always been different, even when she was little. She hadn't played with dolls, nor had she ridden a pink bicycle with streamers coming out of the handle bars like all the normal little girls. Jessica had liked to play with toy cars and she had ridden a black mountain bike as soon as she was big enough.
Whenever she met kids her age, it would start out fine, Jessica wasn't an unlikable person, then the differences started to show and something would come up that would cause everyone to be uncomfortable around her and they'd leave.
Now that she was in High School, she was just as different as ever, and she had no reason to expect making friends to be any better than it had been in the past.
Getting to her second class wasn't as easy as the first. When the first bell rang, she finally gave in and decided to approach someone.
Looking around, she saw another girl closing her locker.
Walking up to her, Jessica asked where room 24 A was located.
The girl seemed to be older than Jessica by at least a year; she gave some clean cut directions to the classroom.
After thanking the girl, Jessica introduced herself; the other girl said she was named Grace.
As they parted, Jessica had no way of knowing that Grace would prove to be the best kind of friend one could have.

Photo Albums

Now a day’s everybody is going digital with everything. I find myself asking: Is this a good thing?
It seems to me that people who do their billing, banking, picture taking, writing, communication and filming all digitally are just one Super Virus away from becoming nobody. I don’t read much science fiction, but I’m sure that there is some author somewhere who has addressed the issue of a technologically advanced species that lost everything in a major power shortage, and everybody was reduced to a very primitive way of living. These people forgot who they were and where they came from and went back to telling stories about gods who control everything that happens, because that will seem more logical than microorganisms, atoms and neutrons. Because these people forgot their own histories they became in essence, nothing…

I’m not about to go into all of that, I’m not predicting that something like that will happen, I’m just planning upon making a smaller point, that will demonstrate that going digital is not necessarily a good thing.

Photos

I love my families albums, I love being able to just sit down and remember things that happened, and even the things that I was too young to remember, I like to imagine that I can. I’m not capable of relating how much these albums mean to my family and I. The ability to recount events and recall old conversations and events that we shared together helps us stay strong as a family, and helps bring forth our individuality.
Another thing I don’t think I could ever live without is our old family portraits. I can’t remember a time when Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Mezzano didn’t gaze down at me from a wall in my families home. Although I never met them, it’s a constant and comforting reminder that I am a part of a family; that a piece of those two people lives in me, and I feel as if as long as they hang on the wall, they will always be alive as well.
I feel similarly about the photo albums, except they have me and people that I know and have met in them, I can’t help but feel as long as they are there, I will always live on. My history and my story will always be there for someone else to see long after I’m gone. It gives me a sense of long lasting security. I will never disappear. I will always be there in those happy, or angry, or frustrating moments, it’s captured right there in that second.

Now this digital thing, I’m afraid of it quite frankly. I walk into people’s houses and there isn’t a single picture on the wall. Not a family portrait, or a school picture. It’s like these people are ghosts, these homes feel as empty and as expressionless as a hotel room. I immediately feel alien from these people; there isn’t a sign of them anywhere!
So when I hear that people have gone digital and their kids are rebelling against it, my immediate reaction is: “of course they are!! Why wouldn’t they?”
They’re growing up like ghosts. No wait, if they were ghosts, they would have a past, and they would be clinging to it. These children are without a past. When you’re growing up, you are constantly wondering “Who am I?” and “Where did I come from?” It’s in human nature to ask these questions. To have a past gives you your identity, something that can never be stolen from you. Photos in easily accessible albums, and hanging on the walls were children can see it gives them a sense of security.
Growing up I know that man on the wall is my Great Grandpa. I know that my Great Grandpa immigrated to this country and married my Great Grandma. That's the greatest feeling in the world: to know that there is a place for you; to know that you are an essential member of a family. Even though they never met me, I am a part of my grandparents lineage, and they mine.
Humans need that sense of belonging, which is why it makes perfect sense that the kids are rebelling against the going-digital thing. What doesn’t make sense is the adult’s immediate willingness to strip themselves of their identity in their own homes.

The Face of a Clock

When I was in first grade, I got so bored, I memorized all of the little cut out crafts that were pined to the cork board plaque on the wall. The teacher had made them all, which never made sense to me. Why would a teacher take the time and the energy to cut out colorful flowers for the spring, Suns for the summer, and leaves for the fall (winter was the only time we students actually made the paper decorations, they were paper snowflakes, of course, but then we had to clean up the mess after we were done.)
Then there was the Alphabet that was taped to across the top of my desk, the capital letters right next to the little letters, and all of the vowels (Except Y and W)were red, the rest were in black type. Beneath the alphabet was out first name, spelt out by the teacher on the first day of class. This entire arrangement always confuse me...
I had learned the alphabet when I was about two (thank you Barney!) and how to spell and write my name long before I had ever set foot in a school room. (Actually that's a bit of a lie, Mama was going through college when I was a baby, and she used to take me with her to the classes.) The first time I set foot in a class room where I was the one who was supposed to be learning....(No, that's not true either, I don't think I was meant to learn anything in school and anything I did learn was probably an accident.) But that's all besides the point. Why were they taking all of this trouble to make sure that the alphabet and my name were right under my nose? And why didn't they make Y and W red too? Or maybe purple, since they don't always work as vowels. The whole thing just confused me, and it shook some of the foundation blocks of my reading and writing skills in the process.....so it was more of a hindrance than a help.
When the teacher was taping that table alphabet/name table tag to the desk, I told the teacher that I already knew the alphabet, and I knew how to spell my name. She said "that was very nice" but she was putting it down so that I would always know which desk was mine. I told her not to worry about it, I was sure that I could remember which one it was. Then she said it was for the other kids so that they would know that desk wasn't theirs. But this didn't make any sense either, because these kids had already been in school for a longer time than me, and I had just arrived from another state; wouldn't they know their own desk from another desk? Especially since their desk had their name written on it? I just said "Oh." and we moved on.

Another thing I remember about first grade is the face of the clock. Either I was looking at the clock as I waited for the other kids to stop talking so that the class would start; or when I was waiting for the kids to be quiet and get in a line so that we could go out to recess, or to go to another class, or to eat lunch; or when I was waiting for the "appropriate time" to go the bathroom.
In the class room, Cogsworth and I got along really well. He was as silent as I was, and his face was filled with disapproval as he looked at the screaming Rug Rats that were my classmates.....yes, he and I got a long really well.

Control

Timothy hurried down the empty hallway, in the back of his mind he knew that there really wasn't any point to hurry. He was already tardy for his first class, so why bother? He couldn't help it though, he at least wanted to give the impression that he had tried to get to class, that he had tried to avoid getting caught by Mr. Principle, but he knew the chances of that were slim. Nigh on impossible in fact.

Sure enough:

"Mr. Garrison!"

Timothy turned reluctantly to face his fate.

"Mr. Garrison," Mr. Principle said in a triumphant voice that would have been appropriate for a spider that had just caught a particularly juicy fly. "Mr. Garrison-"

"I heard you the first two times," Timothy said staring Mr. Principle dead in the face.

"Well, then I won't have to tell you twice to go report to my office immediately."

"What's the point?" Timothy muttered as he turned away.

"What did you say Garrison?" Mr. Principal asked.

"I said what's the point?" Timothy turned around. "I'm here, you're here, why not give me the time of my Detention and I'll see you then?"

"Because it's not Detention that I had in mind," Mr. Principle snapped. "It's a lecture. As an educator I have to instill in you the discipline of follow the rules."

"Well, as an educator, who is concerned for my education, wouldn't it be more appropriate to let me go to class and then lecture me in a time that wouldn't conflict with my curricular studies?" Timothy retaliated.

"Oh, no," Mr. Principle snickered, "It has to be now."

"Why not wait until gym class, that way it will lower my chance of landing the basketball team?" Timothy wasn't giving in. "That way I can still get to class, so that I won't flunk, and after all the tests are the most important thing." Timothy said this sarcastically. "It doesn't only reflect on the progress of the student, but the educators, and the school as a whole. So, by keeping me out of class you are jeopardizing your job. Why not let me slip into class and postpone the obedience lecture to another time?"

"No, it has to be now," Mr. Principal said.

"And I thought that you cared about my education." Timothy said. "You just won't admit that I'm smarter than you are, so you take it out on me by overstepping your authority. I'll go along with though, it after all, you are the 'educated' one." And Timothy went to the principals office.

Valentine's Day

Kathy walked into her third grade class early on Valentine's Day. Nobody else was there, not even the teacher. She preferred it that way. She quickly walked across the room to where the Valentine's Day pouches that her entire class had made the day before were hanging on the wall. She took out the Valentine cards that her mother had bought for the occasion and had helped Kathy fill them out with all the names of her class mates correctly.

Then Kathy reached deeper into her bag and pulled out a hand made card, with hand drawn hearts on it. No one knew Kathy had this card, not even her mother. She placed it into the pouched with Frank written on the front with a green crayon.
Sighing now that that was over with, she walked over to her teachers desk and placed an apple on the desk. It was the reddest and prettiest little apple that Kathy could find in the grocery store the day before. She hoped Mrs. Hatter would like it.
Kathy hurried towards the door as fast as she could and she almost ran into Regina, her best friend. After saying hello to her friend Kathy almost ran out of the building, her face red with the fear that somehow Regina could guess what Kathy had been doing.

Class began fifteen minutes after Kathy had put her Valentine's into place. After Roll Call, Mrs. Hatter thanked the child who had given her the apple. Kathy did not say "you're welcome" like her mother had taught her to do when she was thanked, she knew what Trent, the class bully would say as soon as they were on the playground if she did "teacher's pet" "kiss up" or "traitor" and Kathy wasn't going to allow Trent to ruin how happy she felt; Mrs. Hatter like the apple!!
All the class opened their pouches after lunch time. Kathy was happy to see that she and Regina's pouches were almost full. Kathy looked for the Valentine Frank had sent her and put it into an old pink pencil box that she kept all of her favorite things and hid it in her desk.

When recess time came Frank thanked Kathy for the two cards that she had sent to him; he said she was the only one to give him two cards. Kathy had mumbled a "you're welcome" before Frank asked if Kathy would like to go one to the see-saw with him. Kathy said she would.

Then Regina came over with Mark, her Valentine. Regina confessed to Kathy that she had gone over to class early just to give him a special Valentine. Kathy smiled and said she had been doing the same thing, except her Valentine was Frank.

All four of them had a great time see-sawing and laughing and there was nothing Trent, the class bully, could do to ruin their fun.