All In All It’s Just Another Brick in the Wall

Momma told me this story… so it is mine to tell you.  She seems to think there are a lot of what she calls Baby Boomers who will say, ‘Been there, done that and no thanks, I don’t want the T Shirt.’

In the good old days,  all adults just pitched in and made sure kids behaved the way they wanted their own to act.  Maybe it was the threat of corporal punishment but no one dared sass back.  You bit your tongues and listened, especially to your teachers  who put up with students every day, week in and week out.

However there was one teacher (isn’t there always), who no one ever forgets.  She was small in stature but made up for it in her ability to keep students on their toes, by being relentlessly unforgiving if she caught them drifting off to dreamland, rather than being present, feet on the floor, head out of the clouds.  She actually expected students to be connected to the subject at hand, (Geography in her case) while in her classroom.  Momma tried to mind her p and q’s, concentrate, come up with the correct answer but out of the blue, like a snapping turtle, the teacher would attack, centering Momma out for admonishment.

Pity the student she brought up to the front, handed him or her a pointer and asked where, say Burma was.  If the student pointed to the incorrect place (purely by accident), in a most irritating, sarcastic voice she would say, ‘Don’t tell me.  Burma must have moved.  Strange they are not talking about it on the news.’  The poor student would turn every shade of red as their fellow students tittered.

It is not hard to believe that this kind of walking on egg shells approach, makes one at the top of their game.  Hey, everyone wanted to do well.  That is why Momma would be so disappointed at the results of the exams when she got them back.  Although it would be a passing grade, the teacher From H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks would routinely mark questions that were correct, wrong, and deduct points accordingly.  One day after class Momma went up and asked her teacher about it.  Putting on her sweetest smile the teacher would say, ‘You know what, Quite Contrary, you are correct.  I’ll just mark it in my ledger and next exam, I’ll add the marks on to your score.’

Momma would look at her like she had two heads.  The next exam would not even be marked by her. It would be sent to a central marking location to ensure provincial marking was uniform.

Momma wrote her final exam and waited for the results which came by mail.  She could not believe it.  She had got one mark less than the highest score for all of the geography exams written that year in her province.  Momma and the teacher’s favorite student, even got an acknowledgement from Board of Education, because they got the top scores in the province (which rightfully made the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks teacher look good).

In reflection, did the teacher from H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks very perversity cause students to dig deeper, go further?  Did she see something in Momma’s personality that made her need to challenge her to get the best performance?  Was the teacher as devious as Delilah or as Wise as Solomon?

You probably are saying, ‘whatever’. Momma would never have to see her after high school.  You would be wrong.  The teacher from  H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks decided, since she thought so much of Momma’s parents, (translation – Grandpapa) she would not only move to the same city but buy a condo in the same building.  Momma saw her all the time at unplanned / unsolicited drop bys, at the nearby mall where everyone shopped, at family meals, at the teachers’ place, and even at Momma’s place.  However, the teacher from H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks was now on Momma’s team all the way, mostly because Momma’s son, Wonder Boy was intelligent, perfect in every way, as well as the best looking boy the teacher ever knew. No one knows how someone as hopeless as Momma (in the teacher’s eyes), ever managed to have such a remarkable kid.

All these years later and Momma will tell you, if she is talking teachers with those she went to school with, it always comes round to the teacher from H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks. Whatever methods she used, you can bet, she will never be forgotten.

All in all, it’s just another brick in the wall.