Fabienne remembers

  #18--My Specials     It takes 3 to Drive a Truck Joy Driving in a truck was on the agenda for three of my special male students one day at lunchtime. Apparently, the supervision of our students was lack this day. Someone left their truck idling in the school parking lot.  My three students decided to get in and see if they could go for a drive.    Dan, Will, and Seth worked together. No one saw them leave.  Dan did the steering. Will got close to the floorboards and worked the brake and Seth worked the gearshift.  They drove out of the parking lot and  managed to get three blocks down the main road.  Then they turned down an alley before they drove through some guys' fence, his garden and into the corner of his garage.  So I am having a quiet stress free lunch til I hear on the all-call intercom "Mrs. MacLeod come to the office immediately."  End of my lunch, oh boy what now!! In the office I see my three students, the p...

 Blog #17 My Specials-----Where are they now? In working over 50 years in Education and Counselling, I remember the joy and sadness I experienced working with "my specials" at a Regina, High School.  I worked two years in a  program for Special Needs students aged 15 to 21.  In my second year, I was in charge of 26  students, a half-time EA, a work experience staff member and three part-time staff doing  lessons in Typing, Music, Foods, Library and Art.  I had 17 students in my class and the other teacher had 9 students. She didn't have a teaching license ,so I was to mentor her.  I will change  the names of my students, but I do wonder how they are doing all these years later.     In my class, I had four students with brain injuries and mobility issues.  All injuries were from accidents. Will got bucked off a horse and hit his head on a rock.  Dan  was hit in a  crosswalk, flew high in the air and on a cement si...

 # 16 Crafty Gifts Mother's Day gift making was a lot easier to do. We would make flower pen  bouquets and put  them in a cup or glass holder.  The flower was made from tissue paper, twisted and held  on to the pen with green sticky craft tape. Another project we made , was candles.  One  candle I like to make was the cheese with a little plastic mouse in it.  We used old broken crayons to tint the color of the melting wax in an old saucepan. Using an empty clean milk carton  cut down to one third it's size, we put a small hole in the bottom with scissors, threaded a wick through it and taped it to the bottom of the carton. We made the wick stick straight up by tying the wick to a pencil and balanced it horizontally on the open carton. Next we filled the carton with various sizes of ice and poured the warm wax over the ice. The ice melted, the wax hardened and the carton was removed from the candle. The kids put the mouse inside one of the ho...

 # 15   Messy Craft Gifts I have always loved crafts. I enjoy doodling- abstract, kinda weird stuff, knitting, jewelry making, clay works, painting (bad at it), pretty much any 3-D kind of  objects out of any  materials. In the years , I taught elementary, my classes did a lot of arts and crafts for various themes and  seasons. We made gifts for  Father's Day, Mother's Day, Christmas gifts, Valentines' , Thanksgiving, and Hallowe'en.  Often times, our projects were very messy but we always  cleaned up before anyone discovered t he mess.  Sadly, not always... A Father's Day gift we would make was paper weights. We would take marbles of all sizes and crack them with a hammer (not break them).  Then we put them in large empty  plastic  prescription containers, put them on tin cookie sheets and bake them in the oven. Plastic burning is not pleasant, best to do after lunch.  They always melted into odd shapes and Dads alwa...

# 14---  Evolve or become Obsolete What was the norm many, many years ago is no more, at least in classroom management? Some of the consequences kids got for misbehavior would nowadays be considered cruel, even barbaric. The strap was used on an everyday basis when I was a student. It was still in use when I started teaching. In my first 4 years, I never used it nor witnessed it.  Thank GOD !!   However, I didn't realize that some school rules stated that a student would get the strap for damaging school property.  I was teaching a split grade 2/3 class of 33 students  in a small school in Regina, Saskatchewan.  I had taken my class to the library. There was a set routine to our visit. When a student decided on the book they wished to take out, they lined up to the librarian's desk and waited for their turn. Two boys started fighting over a book and ended up tearing it in half.  I really wasn't sure what I should so I took them to the Principal (C...

Obsolete means "no more".  So what was once in use is now no more.  Buggy whips are obsolete. We get about today by vehicles, cabs, buses, trains and planes not by horse and  buggy.    Old products, out of date items and out of practice  become  replaced with something  new.    Somehow old-fashioned and no longer useful seems rather harsh,  especially to people  who regularity had these things in their lives. Why are jobs like a pinsetter, a projectionist, a log driver  and a wheelwright  obsolete?  My dad was a projectionist.  Will these jobs become obsolete cashier, a dispatcher, a teller,  a telemarketer and an accountant?  When I started teaching the school secretary used a typewriter, a rolodex and  a gestetner and a hand crank  pencil sharpener. Where did the landlines go and where is the carbon paper?  What do you mean there is no fax machine and no chalk  or brushes...

 Retirement-- What is that? Well friends, I hate the  expression " I am so busy, I have no time for anything". However that seems to be true. Somehow 2 years have flown by and even though I officially retired June 2020, I am still working.  I have to say I have always loved working with people - age 5 to whatever, it does not matter. It has been 51 1/2 years since I started teaching. I have worked in Saskatchewan, B.C. and Alberta. I have  always explored many different areas of teaching and counselling. So many memories. Some good some bad. I always say stories can be sad, mad , bad and glad.   Positions I have held: vary from Grade 1 to Grade 12, split/combined regular classes, special    needs (disabled, mental and physical handicapped ages 5 to 21), Learning disabled, English  Second Language Learners, Drop Outs and Street students coming with addictions or Court ordered with jail records, University courses for Teachers on Teaching Speci...

 Teachers are just like anyone else and we all goof up once in a while. In my very first teaching job, I worked in a portable.  I dealt with special needs kids, learning disabled students and English as a Second language kids.  I was cleaning out the teacher desk so I could organize my things.  There was a small compartment at the back of the bottom right drawer  I finally got the divider out to see what was behind it.  I pulled out an object and realized it was a liquor flask.  Some of the students said, "That is Mrs. S's medicine bottle."  Apparently, she told the students she got migraines  and would need to take a slug of her medicine to get rid of them .  I told them  since she was retired she probably  wouldn't need it anymore or maybe she left it for me.  LOL More times than not, teachers would rush off to school in  a hurry, having forgotten something. A good friend of mine rushed into the staff room and takin...

Usually, I found if I invited a man for a tea or coffee  at Tim Horton's, he would usually accept. One guy told me he would meet me if I could pick him up. I called him the "Jail Guy". He said he didn't have a car at present, so I thought --Oh what the heck? Why not? So I drove to his address and he jumped into my car.  He seemed nice enough and he talked  a lot.  It was just after 2pm in the afternoon. We got to the place and ordered.  He kept checking his watch, so I was thinking he must want to leave.  So I asked him "are you late for something or did he just want to go".  He said "Oh, I am fine , I just need to not go passed my curfew." To which of course, I asked "Your curfew?"  He went on to explain, it wasn't his fault but he was  on a day pass from jail. He had been wrongly accused of something and he was trying to make a new start.  He had to be back to the house by 5pm so he would be ready to be  taken back by bus to ...

 When I was young and starting in the dating world, I didn't know anything. Quickly after a date here and there, I became smitten at age sixteen.  I was in love and happy for all the care and attention I got. That was it for me. I married my first love at age twenty-two.  Fast forward thirty-two years , the dream was over and I was  once again alone.  What did I know about how to get into the dating world again. My confidence was shot.  Do I ask the man out or wait for him to make the first move? I had moved to a new city and basically knew nobody.  The few friends I had told me "on line dating was the way to go"  and "just get out there ,"  Try Plenty of Fish or any  one of the dating sites.  So thinking I had nothing to lose and didn't care to be alone, I put up my information.  At first it seemed pleasant, then I thought why is no one is messaging me. My same good friends said " you send the messages." So I tried that. ...

 I always loved doing art and craft projects and doing them with students. When I was in a University Art class, we were doing three dimensional art projects. One was a paper mache`  project which I was trying to make a Frankenstein head bust. Because it was wet and heavy when I left it to dry, the left side of the face drooped down. Almost like the face was the result of a stroke.  The Prof gave me high marks for my interpretation  of Picassio's  Art.  We were doing an object inspired by Rodan and I made a coffee cup.  He is  known for his torso statue's  in clay.  Mine was of a very fat torso of a woman but the glaze dripped down over her boobs and belly roll. I got good marks as the Prof said "it looked like she was  sweating." LOL.  The best one I did was of a mermaid sitting on a rock.  We were to create "beauty in the eye of the beholder". I was trying to hurry the clean up and put her in the kiln. I was thinking of...

 I think back at times when I worked with this interesting man.  He had a huge family  with lots of Drama.  His first child  was an adopted Metis boy, then he and his wife had two or three more and then they divorced.  She went on to have two children with a First Nations man who had already two or three of his own.  Sadly her second husband died in a car crash.  So Cliffy married her again. That I think is when things crumbled around him.  I know when I worked with him he had at least ten children. He owned two homes and the older kids mostly stayed at the other house. They had an intercom between the two houses. His oldest child had issues with police and they always  went to the wrong house. Poor guy always had money problems and the staff had sympathy for him. We used to go through the school mail as he had a tendency to throw the mail unopened behind his desk. We couldn't get milk orders or medal engraving done without paying a prio...

 6  The Cliffy stories In my early days of teaching, I learned not to question the way other teachers did their assignments. Hard as it was to bite my tongue and not give an opinion or an assessment, some would consider gossip, I tried to stay out of conflict with staff.  For two years I had a principal  we nicknamed Cliffy. We all loved him. He was very funny, extremely intelligent, and his life was in chaos. Cliffy, sadly , was a huge drinker. If he got to school on time, he was in no shape to work, as he was always hung over.  He was a half-time principal and taught Grade six the other half of his job.  At least, he was expected to teach them. He would come in wearing sunglasses and tell us he had pink eye.  No one has pink eye for two years straight.  There was a door between his office and his classroom.  He  would have assignments on the board for the class to work on.  Then he would have the phone from his office on a very lo...

5     Where did you hear that? Many times over the years, I heard students repeating something they heard.  Who knows where they  heard it, but nine times out of ten.. they've repeated something their parents said. Homework excuses were always fun. Ones like,  "my dog ate it" or "my Dad thought it was garbage  and threw it away" or "I spilled my juice on it".  The best one was  "my dog sh*t on my spelling book". Heather was in grade four and said her new puppy had messed on her Speller when she was  working on the floor.  She handed me her Speller and I threw it in the garbage.  I asked her why she didn't throw it out. To which she said as her Mom came through the classroom door, "my mom didn't  think you would believe me." The Mom said, "look on page 41". I told them "no thanks, here's a new  book and you have an extra day to finish your work".  Some evidence you don't want to see, just trust. My...

Years ago, I remember teaching a grade 2/3 classroom of students. One boy  named  Tim was a freckled, red-haired boy with a big smile and devious little  habits.  He  wasn't purposely bad , he just had a knack for getting into trouble. He  was always  out of his desk, knocking things over, dropping things, bumping into  others,  generally talking out loud bothering everyone.  If ever there was any  disturbance  in the classroom, Tim was always in the middle of it.  He was my test from  GOD to learn patience. One day after school when I noticed his mom  entering my classroom, I realized my day had gone smoothly and also Tim had been absent.  She started to say she came in to get homework for him as he had the measles and he would be away  for  a few  days. What did I say, you ask!  "Oh Good." She looked at me and I tried to save myself by saying "Oh good that you came in and told me. I was...

 3--   The Best Way to Travel  So many memories and so many lessons to remember. Often times it is not the students who learn but the teachers who are trying to teach them.  Years ago, I was teaching a Grade 2 and 3 class of students and I was also expecting my second child.  If no one agreed to do a full time outside supervision position , then everyone got put on a rotational sharing list in time slots. I prayed to GOD that I could be exempted but GOD was busy.  It was bitterly cold out and more than 30 below. February in Saskatchewan, typical weather and no one wants to go outside. So here I was 7 months pregnant and not in a good mood. The area I was to supervise was the primary area and there was an icy hill as you went out the door. How we endured that bitter cold and got back in safely, I do not know?  The students were good, they knew better that to bother me when I was getting my coat, scarf and boots off and get warm again.  One boy...

My how times fly and things change. So many memories and they don't come in chronological order. Thus scattered bits of my mind come through and I run with that thought. This memory is about a kind teacher I met in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan in my first year of teaching.. She was in her last year of teaching. A very supportive lady, white hair, wise eyes and full of many stories. She said anytime I needed help just ask her. Well, what did I need help with right, nothing!! So what if  she had taught for years and had seen it all.  I was full of myself. I was trained, I was ready and I felt I knew everything. As years went by, I realized she subtly had taught me a lot. She was smart enough to wait to tell me what had worked for her without me asking .  She told me of her experiences of working with students in her stories about her past. What she found that worked and what didn't.  Sometimes I tried her ideas, some worked for me, some didn't and some just needed a bit mor...

 Fabienne remembers memories.  One--Boring, not at all. :) I remember many actions that happened throughout my life. Sometimes it may be personal, sometimes on work life and sometimes marriage and child rearing. Sounds boring. but it is anything But!! Memories can be sad, mad, bad or glad but rarely dull As a child growing up in a small, coal mining community, there was never much to do. No phone, no TV and no video games. OMG. what do we do in our free time? Ha! What free time?  Dishes, laundry, sewing, cooking, cleaning, and I hate ironing. Forever piles of items to iron. I own an iron and two ironing boards, not sure where they are as I hate ironing. We went outside to play and ride our bikes.  The main thing I remember is walking beyond the spill piles of coal dust and laying on the dirt with crocuses all around me. I love the smell of crocuses. I would stare at the sky and dream of a future beyond the black dust from the mine. No matter what I did in my life, I ...