Schools

With all the moving my family did, I went to eight different schools. I started out at a Montessori kindergarten when I was two and a half. It was a good school, and I could read a newspaper by the time I left there at five. I actually left there rather abruptly when my parents found out that Miss Kenderdine, the owner and main teacher, was a theosophist, and was seducing our tiny minds away from more traditional forms of Christianity. This happened shortly before my trip to Canada with Mom in 1955.

Because we arrived in Ontario in early May, and were still there in October, I attended the last month of kindergarten and the first month of first grade at the neighbourhood school. As I could already read, I became some sort of teacher's helper. That kept me from total boredom, but didn't gain me any brownie points with my fellow students.

After we returned to England, I went to a very strange school where classes were held in an old church. Several classes met in different areas of the room. I remember bleachers, or risers in there. I think the building may have been in the process of conversion to a theater. About the only thing I remember, educationally speaking, about the school is that they were trying to teach me to write in cursive. For some reason, I could not grasp the concept of the lower case "s." I could make the transition to cursive with all letters except that pesky "s." After that came Abbotsford School for Girls, in Kenilworth.

I had met my friend "Anne" at the weird school, and her parents became friends with mine. "Anne" and I made the switch to Abbotsford at the same time. We had uniforms there. The concept of uniforms in English schools is somewhat different from the way it is here. Clothing was strictly regulated from the skin out. We had to have so many of a certain type of undershirts and bloomers. In winter we wore wool tunics and itchy blouses, made out of a fiber called "viyella," which was a mix of cotton and wool. We wore wool knee socks and had two pairs of shoes, oxfords for outside and mary janes for inside. We had trench coats and felt hats, and we wore ties. In summer, we wore gingham dresses, white socks and "sandals," which were soft leather shoes with cut-outs in the tops and crepe soles. We had blazers and straw hats. Oh, and berets to wear when it was raining. I have a lot of memories of that school, few of them good. I learned a lot of folk songs there, from "Green Grow the Rushes O" to "Shenandoah." That's my best memento.

After that came the two-room school in Alberta, where my desk got moved over to the fourth grade row. I would have liked to continue there, but knew from the start that we were soon to be moving on to British Columbia.

The first school in Duncan was a disaster. Fortunately, I was only there from October, 1957 to February of '58. The Christmas program was the most fun, as I got to wear that blue organdy dress I liked so much--the one I was wearing in the picture of us getting off the ship. Mom had to make me a wand, and I recited a poem that my dad wrote.

In the middle of the winter doldrums, I started at St. Anne's, a Catholic parochial school. I began my Catholic education, and became accustomed to the uncertain temper of nuns. There will be more on this later, as there are lots of stories from St. Anne's.

In the last month of seventh grade, we moved again, about 15 miles up the highway to Chemainus. Though we lived in more than one house there, I did manage to go to the same school from then until graduation. There are more stories from high school, too.

I can assure you, Dearly Beloved, that I tried my level best to keep my kids in the same schools, with the same friends, for their entire school careers. I didn't entirely succeed, but came close. Chandra went from K to 5 in one school, 6 to 8 in the middle school next door, and 9 till she quit in the high school across the road. She eventually got her GED, and is putting herself through Community College. Vanessa changed schools for her last two years of elementary school, but, as both schools fed into the same middle school, she was reunited with her old friends there. She, too, quit high school, but went back and graduated from the same school her sister attended. Brendan started at the same elementary school the girls went to, but spent fourth grade at a different one, returning to the first one for his last year. He went to the same middle school the girls did, and is now in the same high school. All three had the same kindergarten teacher.

Adding a photo:  this is a party I attended while a student at Miss Kenderdine's Montessori School.