Blessing, mommy. Good afternoon, teacher
I have 6 siblings. Mom taught us all to read from a very early age, starting when we could pronounce the simplest words well.
My childhood and that of my siblings was a very beautiful childhood, although we did not have great luxuries we had a great wealth, a dual mother. On the one hand we had an extremely imaginative, playful, understanding and loving mother.
I remember with tenderness the way our mother would tell us stories at night before going to sleep. Stories she invented and stories inspired by books she had read before, mostly classic stories.
Mom was able to turn, by the magic of her words, a leftover food into a delicious dessert that she presented to our eyes in the most theatrical way possible. She was also able to distract us by inventing games and songs. I think my mother was very happy as she was able to buy us toys, although she also enjoyed building toys for us. I treasure the rag dolls that Mom sewed by hand and dressed them beautifully.
On the other hand, we had a mother who was demanding in manners, very moralistic and who wanted to educate us with strict principles.
This duality manifested itself very clearly when my mother was determined to teach us, herself, to read and write. She was proud that her children arrived at school knowing how to read fluently and with good handwriting.
It was not easy for us. Mom improvised a classroom in our living room. It had a small blackboard and small chairs that we used only to learn to read. Classes started at a precise time: 4:00 in the afternoon. From the kitchen we would hear Mom's voice ordering us to take our notebooks and pencils to go to the school she had invented for us, eight meters from the dining room and three meters from my room.
Then began a little ritual in which my loving and tender mother became a serious, demanding and inflexible teacher.
My part of the ritual consisted of saying goodbye to my mother, as we did whenever we left home, and making the necessary transition to greet the teacher, which she became by simply taking off her apron. That, in sociology, could be called a Social Role Play.
In our culture, children leaving home ask for the parents' blessing and the parents give it.
"Blessing, Mom," I used to say when I was four years old. Pragmatically speaking that meant "Mom I'm leaving the house."
"God bless you, my darling" Mom would reply. What she meant was "You have my permission to leave the house."
I must say that Mom would become the teacher in a heartbeat but I could not sit in the chair until she (as the teacher) allowed me to do so after fulfilling the ritual.
"Good afternoon, teacher." I said, respectfully.
"Good afternoon, Miss Acevedo, you may take a seat." Said the teacher.
Then the class began. The vowels, the consonants, the simple syllables, the more complex ones, the words that are written with capital letters, the words that indicate action, the articles. Homework! Writing the same sentence so many times! Learning to write one letter next to another!
I remember the joy of understanding a sentence. The teacher who was my mother invented some very funny phrases, but she did not allow us to laugh too much, ("The dog licks the soup." "Give me your hand, pigeon." "A lame man climbs the hill."). The important thing was to understand.
Sometimes I needed Mom to relieve the tension of certain moments. Then I would timidly call out to her.
"I don't understand, Mommy."
The teacher would look me in the eyes and say.
"If you keep your eyes on the book you'll understand.... And remember I'm not your mommy, I'm your teacher."
I think this phrase stayed with me forever. Both in my facets as a student and as a teacher. I firmly believe that parents and teachers should never confuse their specific roles.
I will end this memory by telling that to leave class I had to perform the ritual in reverse. I would seriously say goodbye to the teacher and pay attention to her recommendations. Then I would go to my room to leave my school supplies and when I came out I would look for my mother, who, offering me a cup of warm cocoa, would ask me with total audacity:
How was school?
Excited, I would tell her everything I had learned.
Thanks for read!
@gracielaacevedo
So beautiful, I too have memories like this but not so organized like yours, that complete transition. I guess it was really tough to maintain that spirit separately.
Well, we all start our learning phase through our mothers. It reminded me of the days when my elder brother was in school and I would sit beside him with a notebook and a pencil to draw whatever I wanted, my mother would hold my hand and would try to draw something meaningful, that's how it started in my case.
It was a good read.
Thank you so much for stopping by to read my Creative Nonfiction story, @minhajulmredol. Thanks also for sharing your memories. It's true that we all started our learning with our mothers but not everyone can say that they took very seriously the role of teachers to transmit us the love of reading and the commitment to understanding what we read which is what makes the enjoyment of reading. I believe that decoding letters is not the same as knowing how to read and being carried away by what we read.
❣️👩💻
Although it’s very clear that you valued the lessons your mother taught you, I think that you were more than a little afraid of “Teacher-mom”. You respected her ambitions, but wished that there could’ve been a better way.
I’d love to know if you applied the same system to your own children? 😉💕❤️
Hello my dear @itsostylish ! You made me check if I was afraid of my mother in her role as a teacher. I definitely wasn't. I was fascinated. I was four years old and I looked forward to accessing the contents of the books that mom cared for with total zeal. She instilled in me a love of reading and a commitment to comprehension, in her combination of tender motherly love and demanding teacher. No teacher could have done it better.
I did not apply the same technique with my children. No. But in a mysterious way my children learned to read very naturally. We had children's books everywhere, among the toys, scattered all over the place. The children learned with those books to recognize whole words and put together the beautiful stories of very few words that those books brought. They learned to read by playing...and asking questions.
❤️💕😉💕
Yay! 🤗
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Your mother was an excellent role model. I think it went beyond her moral and behavioral functions, she was a teacher in every sense. A great woman. An excellent mother makes excellent children and functional individuals in society.
I think we were fortunate to have a mother who will dedicate herself 100% to our care and growth.
Thanks for sharing.
Happy weekend.
Greetings, @rinconpoetico7! For me, I was fortunate to have a mother who focused on our education and us having a happy childhood. She focused on the need for us to read well and to tell us bedtime stories. She exercised her authority whenever she felt it necessary and made us feel protected, under her love and watchful eye.
Oh my. What delightful memories you have! Your mother had an intentional split personality. And now I understand why you are so smart, @gracielaacevedo!
I think my mom was a theatrical performer! She lived her roles. I got carried away by her with her words to fantasy worlds and with the demands of behavior and commitment to understand the value of perseverance in actions. That's how I see it today, dear @jayna.
Wow! Your mom was so dedicated to giving her children the best start possible in life. I'm glad you thrived on it! Reading this makes me think back on my own life. I learned to read with my dad. I used to sit next to him and watch him read the newspaper, and somewhere along the way, I picked it all up. My dad and I also used to listen to radio plays together. My mom taught me to play Scrabble and thus began my love for words! We played a lot of Scrabble as I grew up, with some marathon sessions running late into the night. I remember that in my second year of Primary School, a classmate and I were left to our own devices reading the highest level books that they had to offer... and we were still bored. So we went to the library instead to find something to challenge us. I think it is a blessing for any child to be able to find joy in reading and writing at such a young age, and then to carry that love for words through into adulthood. This piece was a joy to read, Gracie 🥰 !LUV !LADY
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