Things That Happen In School
They have ALWAYS happened because Human Beings are People first.
Parents are sometimes the last to know.
Based on my own experience, how the child internalizes the experience depends on the child’s environment at home. However, experiences outside the family many of us internalized separately. This is where parents’ inquiry to understand, not to judge, is important.
We lived in a small community anywhere in the world. People’s brain processing has similar adaptations to similar environments. It is a process of integration of experiences that allows us to arrive at our behavior, thus, what our personality is. This statement is based on the fact that it is well-known that we “are our thoughts.” We go through the repeated cycle of “self-talk,” which constructs our “Attitude,” and it shows up in our “Behavior.” If you are unaware, get a hold of it because it is a runaway freight train.
What makes us what we are is genetics. What makes us “who” we are becomes more complex and is written extensively by experts (Psychiatry, Psychology, Medicine, and Behavioral Experts). Today, they have all agreed to an acronym described by “Costa and McRae’s five-factor theory.” The acronym is known as “OCEAN or CANOE.”
Everything that has to do with the brain is theoretical today because the brain is the most complex organism known to man. This is why many diseases of the brain cannot be cured today. To comprehend its complexity, please watch this YouTube documentary by one of my favorite authors, Anton Petrov.
Without going into the difficulties of Freud, the other factors that influence personality are the “local environment,” Home Environment, Parental Influence, and Family Treatment; three of the five (in my time) had an effect, the other two being Culture and School. Today there are six, the sixth being Mass Median/Social Media.
My three main environments were a good training ground for building an independent mind. Hard-working parents who openly discussed important subjects at the dinner table; in a small-town environment where we were free to roam and play. I was the youngest of eight children with three older brothers of two brothers that married two sisters, and we lived together; my brothers were tough as nails — They took after our uncles from our mother’s side, who, in their younger years, drove cattle over the Andes from Argentina to the pacific-side market. It was a fight to survive.
When our uncles visited, there always were stories; one of our uncles would ask us if we wanted a movie and what type, cowboy, mystery, or comedy; he would charge us a penny a head, but if we wanted it in “color,” he would charge two pence. We had tons of fun “during these movies.”
Conclusion
The summation of the story below is that, while you can raise a family of any quantity of children (later on, when my mother’s youngest sister married, we were ten) And give them the “basic training” required to survive the world, the world, on the other hand, will have a different effect on each of them.
The way we internalize our experiences is aided tremendously by parenting — the house is the only benign environment and the refuge we all look for. It is the job of parents to make it so. It isn’t just our interface with them; it is the Principles and Values we observe they have daily as well.
Our parents educated us with the expectation that we would do more and want more from this world.
Some experiences take longer than others to “shake off,” but those observations we make at home are never forgotten and help us find North every time.
Some Details of My Story Before I Flew off My Home
My pre-kinder was the little “school by the canal,” as we called it. It was a single-room mud floor construction with many children. There was an ample play field outside, and across it was an open, man-built construction conduit that took water down the valley to a hydroelectric plant. I don’t remember anything we learned, but I remember enjoying our breaks because, once in a while, a tanner would come to our town (sunny most of the year) to tan his hides in our grass knoll; we enjoyed watching him work. Some of us would talk to him to learn how to tan leather.
One other experience made an impression. I went to Kindergarten in a school run by German nuns. Before me, most of us had been through the same educational path. As I learned when I was older, one of my sisters was left-handed; the nuns had tied her left hand to the chair so she would learn to write with her right hand instead. Her behavior at home changed noticeably. Later on, our parents found out what had happened. When I went to the school, my father sat down with the Mother Superior and me to “have an understanding” that this would not be done with me.
The description above describes the strength of my family’s influence on me. My mother ran our house with discipline, and aside from some great stories of what my brothers did while growing up, all was good.
My parents transferred me to a new school based on “modern techniques for teaching.” It was called “La Escuela Normal de La Cantuta.”
La Cantuta was one mile west of where we lived along the railroad tracks. It was a state school that opened as an experimental teaching school for new teaching and learning methods. Two years later, the Dictator, Manuel Odria, came to the inauguration. I remember the parade and was impressed with the number of soldiers with him. I asked my father who that was, then asked, “What is a dictator?” His answer was simple, “he took the government by force.” Little did I know what that meant, but I knew he was dangerous to us, and we had to live with it.
My first teacher, I will never forget, her name was Gloria. I was about six-seven years old. The class had to sign a Manuscript; it was the first time I used an ink pen. I remember that because I was the last to sign my name… I was left-handed… I wrote with my hand upside down on the scroll…upon signing my name, I smudged many signatures above my name. That experience and how I felt will forever be branded in my brain. The other kids passed the word of what I had done, and everybody was upset. I wanted to disappear. The teacher saved me.
There are no other memories between second and third grade. Fourth grade, looking back, was a benchmark for me. I was about ten years old. My teacher’s name was Torrejon.
Unbeknownst to me, he was a communist and was helping the communists infiltrate the various teaching centers, particularly the university students’ center that was there to learn the “new methods of teaching.” On the opposite side was my father, who also, unbeknownst to me, was the President of the school PTA (this is an approximation since I do not know the extent of his authority). Years later, I learned that he was actively opposed to what the communists wanted to do. Teach to indoctrinate.
What I do know is that during that school year, there came a time when Torrejon started calling me to the front of the class and asking me, for example, to take my shoes and socks off. Then ask the classroom to look at my feet to ask if they were clean. This was from the dust I collected while walking from my house on the railroad tracks more than a mile to school.
My socks, shoes, and feet were Dirty. All of this, he would explain, was an example of what not to be. I would explain why to no avail. “Everybody needs to strive for cleanliness and not to be walking around like this.” Then, he would excuse me from class for the rest of the day. I would pack up and go. I never went home because I knew my mother would kill me. I would go to the fields and play, climb up the mountain to an irrigation canal and soak my feet, or go to a ruined brick-making oven location to see what could find.
On different weeks he’d do different things; I don’t remember anyone else being called to the front of the class but me. This was something the teacher pursued me for, and other than the humiliation in front of the class, I did not know what it was. Whatever it was, it ended up in me getting thrown out of the class for the day. I don’t remember how long it lasted.
One day my mother fetched me and brought me to the dinner table where my father was waiting and asked all the questions. Apparently, Ana, the daughter of close friends, spied on my class, saw what was happening one day, and told her mother.
My father brought me to a meeting with Torrejon. In very civil tones informed him of what he had done and what he thought the type of man he was. I am sure to correct the damage he had done to me. I do not remember the details of that conversation.
So much for new teaching methods. Without the presence of mind to know consciously, I had lost all trust in teachers and rarely paid attention in class. I learned by cramming on my own before tests — which did not go well.
I remember that the next year my father moved me to the school he had graduated from when he was young. “Santa Rosa,” a school run by Augustinian priests.
I shut down from learning and did not trust anything teachers would do or say in class, I did not trust them. I was distracted a lot and punished accordingly. I became a D/F student. The priests hounded me as a bad actor in class (I was). I would study and learn for the finals to pass the class however I could. I was called to many “oral” exams because what I did in finals was not in line with the result of my monthly exams. There were years I spent in “Summer” school to make up the courses I flunked.
My family thought I was the dumbest one in the house. I believed it. My father hired an Algebra tutor for me. He turned out to be my salvation. My love for Math was born again. However, learning by rote did not help there. It took me forever to relate the logical shorthand methods of math to understanding nature.
However, my lack of confidence and mistrust of teachers persisted halfway through my University years, When I met and became friends with a tough but fair teacher that “saw me.”
In my high school graduating year, we were 25 students in my class. Every year, the school would run a contest for the classrooms. The class collecting the most money during Missionaries Month in October would win a “Picnic to the beach day.” That year the Father Superior, Director of the school, Father Blanco, made the announcement during the Monday muster.
My class collected the most money; we knew this as this was measured daily on the big hallway wall — the day when the announcement was to be made. We were nervous with anticipation. Father Blanco announced why our classroom would NOT be given the price — we were the worst-behaved classroom in the school. The price was given to the second-place classroom.
We talked and decided the following Monday, after the Interns arrived (my school had children from all over the country in dormitories), we would take off in the Morning train going up the Andes and have a picnic of our own. The afternoon train would get us home. We told our parents we won and needed to take enough food for morning and afternoon meals (the Externs would have to feed the Interns).
It was all set, except somebody talked too much, and the plan leaked; we(I) didn’t know. On Monday, the interns were taken into the school at the back entrance, where the interns couldn’t escape. We were waiting outside the school in the park when we saw the bus drive by. Then we knew what had happened. We started discussing what we were going to do. The Director came out and started yelling at us to come to class. He called me the head of the fiasco. And said I would be expelled. The others would get a bad conduct grade and other punishments. We all agreed to take off.
I was expelled the next day. My parents knew nothing. I explained, and my father listened patiently. It was not his first rodeo. Once upon a time, one of my other brothers had a fistfight with a priest. He took me to talk to the Director with an appointment in hand.
There were faults on both sides. For example, If it had been determined that there was no way we could win, why let us compete? He worked patiently to get the director to see two points of view. I was allowed back to school with other punishments the following Monday.
This was the class of 1963. Graduation was that December — I was 16. I was to prepare for law school and take the entrance exam in March of 1964. In May of that year, I survived the worst Soccer Riot ever, and in March 1965, I flew to the USA as an immigrant.
I made promises I intended to keep. I had to modify my thinking, make smart decisions and become persistent in my pursuits. I was lucky I surrounded myself with intelligent people and worked hard to leave behind a negative set of beliefs. It took me a long time, but I grew up fast.
Today, I thank my whole family for their love and support. Particularly my Mother(s) and Father(s), my guiding lights in the Ocean of Life.
Parenting today has a new dimension — the internet. This is the new challenge that today’s parents must add to the list of “outside” environments to oversee.
Everybody has gone nuts over AI as if that is the last frontier of Humans on Earth. It could be the last free generation for Americans if we do not take seriously two other issues:
- The incessant shrinking of the middle class. This is the pumping heart of our Country. Without it, we are doomed.
- The conscientious parental grooming of future generations.
All the issues we are fighting for today are selfish fluff. Politicians and the 4th branch are political animals looking out for self-preservation first (it takes a lot of money, you know?). They will solve NOTHING. They live to create BAD PROGRAMS, and no one in government is responsible for the outcome.
One of my favorite thinkers of our time, Sr. Thomas Sowell (to me) once said:
“The most basic question is not what is best but who should decide what is best.”
That would be us.
Thank You for reading
