Isnt it strange how memory is so limited

[BigPond101]

Ask me about "year 5 primary school" and I remember one or two big moments. But there was like 200 school days in year 5.. what was happening on the other 198 I have no recollection of ?

Did they really happen or was it all a dream ?

If no one remembers it did it really happen?

 

[Dinsdale]

didn't you already ask me that?

 

[BigPond101]

didn't you already ask me that?

Tell me your top 4 most distinctive memories from primary school that defined you

 

[perthblue]

Year 5? I couldn't tell you what I did yesterday with any confidence

 

[Cheesed]

Good memory is limited otherwise we would get overwhelmed with it all.

 

[FRUMPY]

Ask me about "year 5 primary school" and I remember one or two big moments. But there was like 200 school days in year 5.. what was happening on the other 198 I have no recollection of ?

Did they really happen or was it all a dream ?

If no one remembers it did it really happen?

I wonder how much of my childhood I actually remember and how much of my memory is from photos and stories from my childhood.....

All because our kids now tell us things from their young childhood and it's basically the same as photos from then.

Sent from my CPH2005 using Tapatalk

 

[raskolnikov]

I find it strange how something that happened a couple of years ago may seem like a lifetime ago, whereas something that happened 30 years ago can seem like yesterday.

 

[Gough]

Year 5? I couldn't tell you what I did yesterday with any confidence

Three different teachers in two different schools for me that year. At least we managed to stay in the same state which was a reasonable effort for us being a mining company family back then.

 

[PT Bar None]

I was taught by a mad nun for a time in grade 5. Like literally.

Apparently she had had an "episode" teaching at one of the Catholic girls schools in Melbourne and had been sent to a convent in the country to convalesce and retreat. The country convent that supplied the nuns that taught at our Primary school as it happened. During the year the nun who normally taught us became ill, and this one deemed herself recovered and stepped in to backfill.

This old bird was 10/10 loony tunes. She would repeatedly lecture us about death and the afterlife, speaking with such certainty. As if it was all a matter of fact. She lamented how few girls were joining the convent and pressured the girls in our class to consider doing so. Three girls said they were interested and they instantly became the favourites. And they loved it and took advantage of it - they were just 10 year old girls afterall. If one of them told this nun that "Jeremy was throwing stones at lunchtime", then Jeremy would find himself writing lines in the afternoon, regardless of what Jeremy had actually done.

And on the other side of the equation were the three boys who became the focus of her ire. The weird thing was, it wasn't the 3 biggest ratbags in the class that she targeted. We were all pretty placid. I was one of the three. Class would be all chattering away quietly whilst doing math problems. But it would be me that got into trouble for talking. Or one of the other 2 lads. Or all three of us. But just us three. I was miserable and realised that I could get away with nothing, so I pulled my head in, shut up and tried to become invisible. It didn't matter. I still got blamed. The favourite girls knew what I was trying to do so they would dob me in just to see me get in trouble. It was funny to them. And it probably was.

It all came to a head one Friday. I had been selected to make my debut for the school's footy team, playing that afternoon against one of the neighbouring schools. I was really excited and even had new (hand me down) boots to wear. We got dressed in our kit at lunchtime. just before we were due to leave I hear my name being screeched out in an all to familar tone. "You were climbing trees at lunchtime" "No sister, the football got stuck in a branch and I just jumped up and knocked it loose". "No, you were climbing. I saw you". This was impossible and a bold faced lie. "You are not playing for the school today. Go inside and get changed."

This was the final straw for me. I was inside, by myself, getting changed and crying. I had been looking forward to this day all week and it had been ruined in an instant by that crazy old nun. I'd been going out of my way to not do anything wrong and it didn't matter. I snapped and couldn't see a way out of this. I picked up my bag walked along the corridor and exited onto the playground via the grade 1 door. From there I walked directly to my bike, and without saying a word to anyone I hopped on and rode home.

My mum was suprised to see me home so early and I've let loose with everything about being picked on and finished up by declaring that I was done with that school. "I'm not going back."

A little later, the phone rang and it was the school looking for me. The mad nun had lied again about how I left and that was what they told my mum. To my mum's credit, which must've very difficult for a lifelong devout catholic, she disagreed with the nuns. That wasn't the done thing. "Well, I've been told a very different story." My mum picked up that if what they were accusing me of was true, then I would've tried to cover it up or clumsily spun it to justify. Instead it was an out of the blue accusation to my mum, and combined with what I had said and how emotional I was she knew that what the nuns were saying was perhaps not completely true. Something they're not supposed to do. "No, he won't be coming back to school today."

I steadfastly stuck to my guns about not returning to school. "you have to go to school". "Then I'll go to the state school. I can't go back there." My mum made plenty of phone calls trying to broker a peace. The nuns just expected me to return to school and accept my punishment, with no suggestion of any wrongdoing from any of them. She had more luck with some of the layteachers. Ironically with one of the strictest ones. She knew I wasn't a bad kid and I found out later also had a problem with this same nun. The grade 6 layteacher even came to our house to talk to me and agreed to try and protect me, so long as I came back. She said there were no repercussions, and they just wanted me back at school.

I relented and returned the next day. I ensured I arrived right at bell time, soas to avoid having to talk to anyone before school and be noticed. It didn't matter. As soon as I stepped in the classroom the nun pointed and bellowed at me "You! Out!". I tried to explain the peace that was brokered. "No, its OK sister. Mrs Crabapple said it was all OK and I could come back to class. It's OK". "If you don't want to be in my class, then I don't want you in my class. Get out!"

So it's 10 past 9, all is quiet and I'm sitting outside the school in the playground by myself. I was wondering what to do next. This is exactly what I told the adults would happen. But they convinced me it would be OK. So I couldn't go home again because they'd just make me come back. I was in the process of figuring out how I could run away from home and where I could stay during the day when I heard a voice behind me.

"What are you doing?" It was the principle and head nun. I started again explaining how I had run off, but had been told it was OK to come back, but she just threw me out of the class before I even came in."

"Oh, it was you! Come with me!" Hearing the noise, the grade 6 teacher came out and tried to interject but the principle told her and the other teachers who had now come out to go back to their classrooms. She frogmarched me to her office.

I don't really remember what happened in the office. I got the cane. But I don't remember where or how many. I feel like it wasn't that bad? I can't remember if I got lectured or sent to pray or anything else. I remember being walked back to class kinda relived. Relived because this meant it was over. "I have punished Master Higgins so he will now be returning to your class. There will be no more said about it". And that was it. She stopped doing all the favourite/bad eggs thing. Stopped enagaging with the students. Just became a vanilla teacher. Barely even acknowledgd me, and I was perfectly happy with this. I just disenagaged and put enough effort into schoolwork to not be noticed or called upon. Never raised my hand. A few days after, the original nun returned from illness and this one went back to the convent. And that was the end.

She did reappear briefly in an administrative role the following year. Again, she never really acknowledged or spoke to me in that time. But it was at that time I realised she wasn't liked by the layteachers. We would be having an assembly and she would be ranting about something or other. And you could see the layteachers looking at each other and rolling their eyes.

I'd like to say this was the final time I was assaulted by a person of the cloth, but alas not by a long chalk. However those are stories for another time.

 

[the_interloper]

Some funny s**t happened at school no doubt, but there was so much tedium in amongst it.

 

[dumb]

You're naturally going to remember more emotionally poignant moments than tedium. Given our emotional maturity and impressionability when we're young, we might remember quite a lot of our time before falling into an age needing to fulfill the tediousness of society's requirements of us. It doesn't serve us any purpose to hold onto everything, though there are people with photographic memories but that's the exception.
Not to mention, our ageing brains not collecting what they once could.