picastoc - I have never understood and never will understand the cavalier attitudes displayed by many towards the precious gift of schooling. I listened to Radio NR this morning (after the Buckley shock wake-up) and they were talking about it being 'Library - or 'Book'-Day' today and kids getting dressed up in their favourite character from a book and what parents/teachers should do to get kids interested in reading. I had none of those encouragements, hunted for books all on my own, received one or two for Christmas only - then went to the local library, which had a small children's section, remember reading Robinson Crusoe that way - eventually befriended a girl whose brother had a complete collection of adventure books (I preferred those, but looked longingly at some of the subscriptions some of my friends' parents bought for them - as in 'girly stories' - I never even asked for that, knew it would be a 'no').
One of the few naughty things I did at school - was read those books - under the desk. I was one of the taller girls, so sat in the second-last row (last row was 'Alcatraz' for the badly-behaved) and behaved well and was a good student, so teachers never suspected anything and I usually kept up with what was going on. I also remember the misbehaving kids were from the lesser streams, we were divided into A and B classes - 'A' being the better students = there was usually a collection of them out in the corridors -'banishment' and 'shame' was the punishment for misbehaviour.
I am still mystified why kids misbehave, but perhaps we keep them in school for too long, and they should be facing adult challenges, particularly the boys. Teachers are absolute marvels; I have got a few teacher friends, well ex-teachers now; one particular one is/was also an artist and I have two of his paintings, but he also did ceramics and sculpting, sometimes brought students home to the farm, where in a large shearing shed they'd do ceramics - my two younger girls were in his class, too and still adore him.
P.S. 'Buckley' is still going - what an artist! Tau
