When I was a kid, I hated school. I just didn’t want to be there; I wanted to be at home with my mom. It seemed like cruel and unusual punishment to be sent off every morning in rain, snow, sleet or heat. I went to a Catholic school just down the street from where I lived. It was a pleasant enough place, I suppose. The church was right across the street and back then it was a big part of our education.

In 1963 I was in kindergarten. At the time, it was run out of the church basement, and really wasn’t much of a learning centre. It was a small room with some toys, books and a few puzzles. But I felt a more urgent need to be outside. I’d often ride my tricycle, a honking big green trike, to kindergarten. I’d then spend most of my time on it, outside on those beautiful days riding around the church parking lot. That is until the teacher, who was an elderly woman, would come out and tell me to put my bike away and come and learn some letters. I didn’t enjoy being told to put my bike away. In fact, feeling part of the whole school experience was few and far between for me. School, from my perspective, was a place where freedom didn’t exist. And it was hard to listen to this woman who, it seemed to me, should have been at home knitting baby sweaters for her grown children. I’m sure I didn’t think that back then, but I think that now. And perhaps she wasn’t as old as I remember. She may have been my age now for all I know, but at the time she seemed really, really old.

One thing I do remember about those kindergarten days was the day President Kennedy was shot. I remember being there playing, then all of a sudden there seemed to be this huge commotion going on, with adults running in and out of the room. Someone, I recall, found a television and proceeded to turn it on. I remember my teacher crying. Then all of a sudden my mother showed up, which was really odd because my mother would never take me home unless there was some sort of emergency. She did try to tell me what was happening but all I remember is the sadness of the adults, and the tears. Also, it seemed to me they were fearful. That day, like others that would follow, would ultimately become embedded in my mind. The feeling of loss and sadness still resonates with me today.

One cold, blustery winter morning, when I was a year older and in grade one, I spent several hours playing on a snow hill just down the street from my house. It must have been just after one of those great big snow storms, as I was having a wonderful time making angels in the snow. The street was so quiet, the sounds muffled by all the snow that had just fallen. The sky was a perfect blue and the sun was shining. I was quite happy playing out in that snow bank. Unfortunately the woman who lived across the street from that snow bank felt differently.

I remember her coming up to me. “Hello, are you Martha?”

“Yes,”  I responded.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in school, Martha?”

“I think so.” Now I was feeling like I was being interrogated.

“Ok, well why don’t I take you home?”

“Okay,” I said, not thinking it was going to turn out so wrong once we got to our front door.

“Hello, Joan,” the woman said to my mother at the door. “I found something that I think belongs to you. She was playing outside our house. She’d been there for quite some time and was sure she must be bitterly cold so I thought I’d bring her home to you.” 

“Well, thank you,” my mom replied.

Once the woman left, my mom’s demeanor completely changed. “Martha, what were you thinking? Why aren’t you in school? You have to go to school!” she yelled. She yelled a bit more, then grabbed her coat and hauled me off by the scruff of the neck all the way to school. That was one of the most embarrassing events of my life. It was awful arriving to class, when all the other kids were seated properly at their desks, being dragged into the room by my mother. Me crying, her crying; it was not a pleasant scene. And then after my mother left I got yelled at some more by the nun who was my teacher. I tuned out most of her yelling and looked out the window at the beautiful day I was missing.

From then on, school was just not the place I wanted to be. And even though I never went to university, I did, at the tender age of forty-nine, receive my diploma from Vanier, Quebec’s CEGEP (General and Vocational College) in Early Childhood Education.

Ironic the way life works, isn’t it?

Photo Credit
Photo courtesy of Martha Farley – all rights reserved

Don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t been easy on anyone; the teachers have also had their fair share of burdens during this pandemic. And the support staff in general has been amazing, receiving kudos for a job well done in the news and social media. However, in all the news reports and social media posts, there has never been a mention about the staff who have shown up for work from the very beginning of this pandemic, when things were scary and nobody knew anything about the infectious disease. These brave men and women stepped up so essential services in our communities could go to work. Parents dropped their children off with the emergency daycare staff, knowing without a doubt their children would be safe and well looked-after. It was the daycare staff that put on the masks, the PPE, the gloves and a great big smile to help those children get through the first wave of this horrific pandemic. Yet we didn’t hear about these brave souls in the news. We didn’t hear about their fears of catching or spreading the virus and bringing it home to their loved ones. We didn’t hear about the long hours and the anxiety that would overcome each staff member as someone else got sick or was sent home because of a positive test. And we should have, because it’s not just during pandemics that these incredible people give to the children in their care. It’s every day of every year, even in the direst of times, that they step up and handle crisis after crisis with calmness, care and humor.

I’ve been a daycare technician for almost eleven years now and have witnessed the dedication and spirit that is ingrained, it seems, in these staff members. In times of crisis, there’s a calm about them, an “If there’s something to be done, let’s do it!” kind of attitude. They jump right in to whatever catastrophe they’re facing. Snowstorms, ice storms, pandemics – its just another day in daycare. It seems those who run and work in daycares really are prepared for anything. We must give them credit for handling such crazy situations with such dedication and kindness. We daycare technicians should be so proud of our staff and what they do for our communities. Without these incredible educators, a lot of parents would be stuck. With extended families becoming a thing of the past, some parents have no choice but to send their children to daycare.

Here we are again, a new year and a new variant upon us, one that seems to be spreading as fast as wildfires. The children are back to learning from home. To help parents who are essential workers, our daycares, once again, are open and ready for business. And again, the staff is working hard to make sure the children that are coming are online and doing their schoolwork. They’re making sure they’re comfortable and happy. I want to thank my staff who have come into work during this second round of Covid-19. Who knows how many more we will have to battle, but it seems to get easier as we go on, and less scary, thanks to the vaccinations.

So, let’s not forget the forgotten ones. The ones who show up no matter what the crisis. The ones who care deeply about the children and are concerned for their health and safety. The ones who make daycare fun, are always happy and have only joy to spread. Let’s not forget the forgotten ones who never boast about what they do, and who really do so very much for our schools and our communities.

Cheers to our daycare staff across the board – for your hard work, dedication and sprit. We have not forgotten you!

Photo Credit

Photo by Martha Farley – all rights reserved

Within that brief gaze I experienced a flashback. It took me to 1999, when I was in eighth grade. I remembered how I would enter my class, cheerfully greeting the middle-aged man in a tie seated on the teacher’s desk, and make my way to the seat next to him. How I had fought for that seat, arguing with my classmates as I described my inability to see and hear from the back, proclaiming that just one seat out of thirty-five in the classroom was fit enough for me. In truth I had other reasons. The seat got me close to my favourite teacher and my first crush. One day when he asked me to distribute some worksheets, my hands actually touched his. The effect was magical enough to spread its warmth all over my body, butterflies that flew out of nowhere into my stomach. With that brief touch adrenaline gushed into my bloodstream, blushing me from head to toe. I remember how he commented on my sudden transformation, “Girl you’re going red!”

I would stare at him for the forty-five minutes he spent in my class, eying his every move and listening to his every word. He was the only teacher I did listen to which likely explains why the only A on my report card came from his class. English, as it turned out, was one subject I struggled to score a good grade in. It was the only subject where my heart assisted my brain.

I remember a particular class when he asked us to describe our greatest fears. When it came to my turn, I said my greatest fear was losing my favourite teacher. Despite trying to sound dramatic, I still managed to get a host of “hooooooes” from my classmates and a “that’s adorable’’ from my teacher. He didn’t know I meant him; I was interrupted too soon. I had so much to say. He was more than just a teacher to me; I practically worshiped him. He was all I ever thought about day and night, and was the only reason I could never miss a day of school. I admired him for his incredible accent and his thick hair. His hazel eyes had a magnetic attraction and would force me to stare right into them. My love for him was a secret which I could not confess, even to my best friend.

Then on Valentine’s day I decided to leave him a secret note. Writing ‘I love you’ and a few romantic lines I had heard in movies, I slipped it in his staffroom locker and ran away before being noticed. Sometime later I learned that he was getting married to the French teacher. It turns out my love note was taken to be from her. Though it was later discovered that she hadn’t written it, by then they were married it was too late for him to start hunting for his secret admirer. My heart shattered at the discovery and I forced my mother to shift me to a different school. She did. I left it all behind me, my friends, the school and him. I decided to live a different life from then onwards, convincing myself to never make the same mistake of setting my heart on a teacher.

As my memories of the past whirled in my head, I unconsciously pushed the pile of books into his hands. Then I felt the same touch. Surprisingly the butterflies still managed to play around in my stomach and the same gush of adrenaline made my cheeks blush. And then I heard those same familiar words,“Girl you are going red!”

 Photo credit:

Microsoft Office Clipart Collection

Guest Author Bio

Haania Khan
A sparky teen who likes to put her heart out only on paper.

I had my Sarah Jessica Parker moment today. No, not Sex in the City. The other one from I Don’t Know How She Does It? At the end of a meeting, I looked at my iphone.

 11:20 a.m.

10 minutes to trek across the University Campus to my son’s elementary school. I’m Running in my skirt and dress boots. I wonder if I still have to go to the gym? I arrive late, sweaty, hair having rearranged itself in a birds-nest-kind-of-way. Flashback to my own childhood when I was the last kid standing in front of my school – wondering if my mom would ever come. Now, I get it. 

I enter his classroom – a not-so-delicate-glow of sweat lighting my face – and I am a lunch-time volunteer. Corbin is so happy to see me.  Work behind me, I’m in his world meeting his friends. One hour later, work starts creeping back and I start making lists in my head. My son has velcroed himself to my skirt.

I am talking to the other Moms – who stay at home – my defences go into high gear. We are are own worst enemies – women. We judge each other and ourselves and nobody, but nobody gets a break. It’s a cliché for me to say that ‘they’ don’t think I’m raising my own kids and yet I am standing there assuming that is what they are thinking. Feminism got us out into the workforce, but where is she now?

“It must be so hard,” they say. I answer with “It is hard,” but I don’t offer a counter argument for why I do it. Truth is, I don’t always know. But, I need both my work and my kids and when I think about answering the question “how does she do it?” All I can come up with is “not very well.” Sometimes work gets the short end of the stick and other times my kids don’t get enough of me.

Google hits for search terms “stay at home vs. working mothers” are aplenty. I just trust that it will all be fine and know that – hard as it is – I have to honour who I am or I will be miserable to myself, to my husband and to my kids.

Photo Credit: I Don’t Know How She Does It trailer. UTube

Corbin: School is not quite what I imagined it would be.
Me: Can you give me an example?
Corbin: Well, I thought there would be small individual wooden desks with ink wells.
Me: Have you been watching ‘little House on the Prairie’ on UTube?
Corbin: No. I just thought that’s what it would be.

We have now not just survived, but sailed through the first two weeks of full-day kindergarten.  It is easy to get him out the door and he does not want – thank you very much – to be walked to the playground.  He saunters off, backpack dangling awkwardly as he makes his way along with many other small turtles who are full of promise, ambition and enthusiasm.  I am content as I soak up the moment knowing that the day will come when he won’t want to go to school.  “He looks so small,” my husband says.  If he were a girl, my husband would have teared up.  But, that’s not my guy’s style.

We are celebrating Corbin’s new beginnings along with his brother’s.  Hamish is having a hard time adjusting to his big brother’s absence at daycare, but has commenced his own pre-school program and is brining home shapes and delightful hand print works of art.  And so, on this glorious pre-fall, end of summer day we are heading to Heritage Acres, where we will rejoice in a celebration of steam.  I’m pumped.  Truthfully, though, I am excited.  My Dad belongs to the Vancouver Island Model Engineers and we will ride the trains, eat some corn that has been boiled through the power of steam, and take a ‘nature walk,’ as my son calls it, through the woods.

In two weeks we will have Hamish’s 3rd birthday party here and so I’ve decided to check out the school-house, where we will eat cake and drink libations for the under six set.  After checking out the party room, we walk through to look at some of the exhibits of artifacts hanging throughout the building.  The room next to the party room is a class room.  Corbin walks in and smiles.  He has found his desks with inkwells.  It is not the classroom that Corbin has come to know, with its myriad of toys in primary coloured plastic bins, central heating, tables (not desks), and cozy carpet for story time.  It is the classroom of my son’s imagination.  It is a recreation of the original school-house, which stood in Central Saanich in the early days of the nineteenth century and held kids of more than one grade level.  

Norman Gillan is sitting off to the side of the room in a chair surveying the one room school-house that he attended 85 years ago.  He is alone, quiet and pensive, almost blending in to cork board and black boards behind him.   I turn to him to say hello. He tells me that his little sister who was three and his brother who was four were too young for school, but that they were sent there to keep the class list large enough so that Saanichton School would not be closed.  He tells me that this was his school, that he grew up in Saanich and although he now lives just outside Vancouver, he took a road trip over for the day just to visit the place where he learned to read 85 years ago.  

The school, was built by Thomas Tubman in 1912-1913 and it operated as a public school until the 1970s.  It was originally located on Mt. Newton Cross Road on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.  The two acres were sold to the trustees of Saanich School District with the deed of the land being signed on May 6th, 1914 by Charles Gillan, Norman’s father, who owned the land.  The selling price was $1200.  The school continued to accept enrolment until it was closed in 1975.  In 1980, a grant from Heritage Trust of $17,000 funded the move from its original home to Heritage Acres, where it could be cared for and experienced by the public on the land belonging to the Saanich Historical Artifacts Society.  Thanks to generous donations amounting to $40,000, corporate and service club donations and many hours of volunteer labour, the school-house was restored in 1998.  One room has been recreated to show what the classrooms looked like while the other is used for meetings, events and birthday parties.

“I’m 93 years old, but I still like to come back. I drive myself, you know.  I just bought a new Toyota Matrix.”  Norman told me that he and his sister donated towards the restoration of the school-house.  “They told me that we donated the most money and put our names on a plaque.”  While I can see that he is proud of this fact, I can also see that it is not the status of being a major donor on this project that pleases him.  He returns regularly just to sit in the room and remember.  

He was a truck driver throughout his life not a high-powered executive or doctor and yet he still feels connected to the place that gave him the foundation of his education.  Of course, I wanted to sit down and ask him so many questions.  But, I had two rugrats running around my ankles needing open space to dispel energy and so I simply thanked him for all he had done and told him the story of my son’s disappointment at not having wooden desks with inkwells in his class room.  I introduced him to my boys, told him that Corbin just started school last week and watched my son’s face as he digested the idea that this man who sat before him attended this very school with his brothers and sisters and friends 85 years ago.  Corbin told him that he liked the wooden desks and Norman said, “yes, me too.”  

 I lost my grandfather almost two years ago.  I still miss him dearly and whenever I meet and engage elderly people I feel a tug at my heartstrings.  I immediately want to adopt them.  I miss the comfortable silence of their company and I miss the stories.  It was hard to leave Norman. I’m a historian and am constantly stopping for all sites of historical interest and reading picture books to my children that recount people, places and events in history.  And, on that perfect fall day at Heritage Acres, I fell in love with a school room and an old man.  And, I recognized that the school desks of my son’s imagination, bound to a remembrance and representation of the idea of school – wooden desks, cherry red apples and scribblers – is fed by people like Norman who nostalgically tied to their own past contribute to the romance of history by keeping it alive through projects like school room restorations.

Photo Credit

© Christine Roome. All rights reserved.