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My parents sent me to a Catholic school in their sincere belief that I would be getting a better education there than in public schools. They never seemed to grasp how incompetent and in several cases, borderline insane, the teachers actually were.
I do not know what experiences others had in Catholic schools, but mine seemed to specialize in hiring rather marginal lay teachers to supplement the nuns (grade school) or Christian Brothers (high school) that served as the teaching staff.
In three of my eight grade school years the teacher I began the year with was not the teacher at the end of the year. Two of them were nuns who suddenly were gone one day with no explanation from the school apart from "Sister Assumpta needed a rest" or "Sister Mary Francis wanted to devote all of her time praying for you." These would have been effective cover stories were it not for the fact that my father was the attorney for The Sisters of Saint Joseph (the order) and was involved whenever they wanted to salt one of their own away in the mental ward of Mercy Hospital (which was operated by the Sisters of Saint Joseph) and I learned this was where my two nun teachers had gone to get rest and pray for us.
The other was a lay teacher, Mr. Kingsley, and he was fired as a consequence of parent complaints because he was a sadist of some sort. It didn't happen in my class, but the final straw had been when Kinglsey "crucified" a student who had been misbehaving. He made the boy balance for an hour on the ledge of the chalkboard, if he fell, as he did several times, Kingsley would whap him with the long pointer stick he always carried and make him climb back on the ledge. And no, I'm not making that up.
Never fired for some reason was Mr. Fernandez who I had for seventh grade Spanish. He was a hot head who lost his temper at misbehavior and would scream right in a kid's face, threatening them with his standard line which was always "Someday, someday I bring boxing gloves to school and bray chur heads!" (break your heads...he had a heavy accent.)
One day our regular teacher was out and they grabbed the mother of one of the students and recruited her into serving as the substitute for the day. We were giving her the usual hard time reserved for substitutes and she was already pretty flustered when the classroom door suddenly flew open, Fernandez rushed in carrying a box, didn't seem to notice that the regular teacher wasn't there. He placed the box on the teacher's desk, pulled out a pair of boxing gloves and waved them in front of us. "Joo see! Joo see! I told joo! I bray chur heads! I bray chur heads!" he stuffed the gloves back into the box and exited.
Our poor substitute was absolutely frozen in fear. She asked "Who was that?" and of course we replied that we had never seen him before and she ought to call the police. Instead she contacted the front office who told her "That's just Mr. Fernandez, he doesn't mean anything with all that, just ignore him."
I'll stop here, but I have a bookload of more stories along the same lines.
He placed the box on the teacher's desk, pulled out a pair of boxing gloves and waved them in front of us. "Joo see! Joo see! I told joo! I bray chur heads! I bray chur heads!" he stuffed the gloves back into the box and exited.
Our poor substitute was absolutely frozen in fear. She asked "Who was that?" and of course we replied that we had never seen him before and she ought to call the police. Instead she contacted the front office who told her "That's just Mr. Fernandez, he doesn't mean anything with all that, just ignore him."
I'll stop here, but I have a bookload of more stories along the same lines.
Grand, I'm just weeping with laughter here.
To be fair, it was not just the religious schools that had nutjobs. I went to public school, where third grade was a disaster for me. Mrs Hicks was a crabby old coot who hated children and her job, near as I could tell. One day a pencil rolled off my desk and I bent over to pick it up, only to be clobbered over the head with a stack of books and told to quit goofing off. I went home sobbing, vowing never to return to school. This so jolted my mother that this former lover of learning was so distraught, that it was the only time in memory she stood up to authority. Marched over to the school vowing to get that teacher fired. It turned out that Mrs Hicks had a particularly bad week because a half dozen other mothers had marched in with the same aim in mind. The old bat was gone two days later. But unfortunately she was replaced by someone straight out of college who was the polar opposite. I don't recall anything the rest of that year that didn't involve working with papier mache and mostly had to do with dinosaurs.
The issue isn't really that religious schools have a corner on head case teachers, because they don't. It's that they don't do BETTER than that. After all, that's the whole reason for parents to pay good $$ to send their children to a private school. I've never seen any evidence that they deliver on either a superior education or an elevated social and moral climate that speaks well of their belief-system.
The only religious education I've heard tell of that actually does a pretty good job of ... well, educating ... is the Jesuit-run schools. They actually value scholarship and rigor, from what I've heard, and a good friend of mine came out of that system (high school and college) and did well for himself. And his daughter went to a Jesuit college, and she rocks, too. Both of those folks seem to know how to think very well compared to your average bear.
My parents sent me to a Catholic school in their sincere belief that I would be getting a better education there than in public schools. They never seemed to grasp how incompetent and in several cases, borderline insane, the teachers actually were.
I do not know what experiences others had in Catholic schools, but mine seemed to specialize in hiring rather marginal lay teachers to supplement the nuns (grade school) or Christian Brothers (high school) that served as the teaching staff..
Your story really brings back memories of my own parents who were sent to Catholic schools on Long Island where they grew up. Those crazy nuns were the reason my parents left Catholicism, and delved into the Church of God and non-denominationalism when they relocated down south in the late '70's. My mom's dad, who had his law degree from Harvard, worked for the state of NY and their mental hospitals in some administrative role. He was a staunch atheist, but thought his kids would get the best education at the Catholic school. She went to the Academy of St. Joseph which may be a part of the same sect your father worked for with St. Joseph. I'm not really sure how the Catholic system operates.
My dad was singled out by one psycho nun at his school in third grade who would force him every few weeks on his way to class to stand in front of her class with his shirt up. He was chunky, and she would take her ruler and smack his stomach, and cluck to the class at how this fat, lazy boy would never be more than a garbage man as a warning against laziness. My dad said it was so scarring that he had a lifelong fear of being overweight, and he still works out religiously to this day constantly monitoring his weight. He ended up being successful in the corporate world, and said he vowed to himself early on he would never turn out as the failure she said he would.
My mom had severe diarrhea (sorry, tmi) throughout school because she was petrified of those nuns! She described them as not even seeming human with those crazy black cloaks. She has often recounted how horrible and stressful it was to have to memorize massive amounts of useless Latin and French for those old biddies, and would routinely get her hand whacked if she got a bad grade! One of those old biddies severely berated my mom for peeking in a bathroom stall when she was five at her little friend who was pee'ing, and she said she never forgot the humiliation and fear of this.
I think those old biddy nuns caused my sweet, wonderful dad to really mistrust and have some deep seated repressed resentment towards women for many years. As Grandstander said, some of them were okay, a few were kind, but others were very mentally disturbed!
Even though my mom and dad exposed us to some fringe religious stuff, I know that their intentions were good. They were just trying to find their own way out from under an oppressive upbringing in those crazy Catholic schools!
Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chloe333
Your story really brings back memories of my own parents who were sent to Catholic schools on Long Island where they grew up. Those crazy nuns were the reason my parents left Catholicism, and delved into the Church of God and non-denominationalism when they relocated down south in the late '70's. My mom's dad, who had his law degree from Harvard, worked for the state of NY and their mental hospitals in some administrative role. He was a staunch atheist, but thought his kids would get the best education at the Catholic school. She went to the Academy of St. Joseph which may be a part of the same sect your father worked for with St. Joseph. I'm not really sure how the Catholic system operates.
My dad was singled out by one psycho nun at his school in third grade who would force him every few weeks on his way to class to stand in front of her class with his shirt up. He was chunky, and she would take her ruler and smack his stomach, and cluck to the class at how this fat, lazy boy would never be more than a garbage man as a warning against laziness. My dad said it was so scarring that he had a lifelong fear of being overweight, and he still works out religiously to this day constantly monitoring his weight. He ended up being successful in the corporate world, and said he vowed to himself early on he would never turn out as the failure she said he would.
My mom had severe diarrhea (sorry, tmi) throughout school because she was petrified of those nuns! She described them as not even seeming human with those crazy black cloaks. She has often recounted how horrible and stressful it was to have to memorize massive amounts of useless Latin and French for those old biddies, and would routinely get her hand whacked if she got a bad grade! One of those old biddies severely berated my mom for peeking in a bathroom stall when she was five at her little friend who was pee'ing, and she said she never forgot the humiliation and fear of this.
I think those old biddy nuns caused my sweet, wonderful dad to really mistrust and have some deep seated repressed resentment towards women for many years. As Grandstander said, some of them were okay, a few were kind, but others were very mentally disturbed!
Even though my mom and dad exposed us to some fringe religious stuff, I know that their intentions were good. They were just trying to find their own way out from under an oppressive upbringing in those crazy Catholic schools!
in Canada, Catholic schools are part of the public system and taxpayer funded.
When we moved to a new area when I was 10, there was no Protestant schools, and for the first time in my life I had to go to a Catholic school. we got a nun as a teacher in grade 6 and she scared the bejesus out of me because of all the horror stories I had heard.
Turned out that she, and the nun I had in grade 10, where two of the best teachers that I ever had. Perhaps I got lucky, but I cannot say that I had a bad experience in Catholic school. Oh perhaps I could comment about the 45 minutes debate I had with a priest in grade 11, the basis of which was the way I figured it that either Jesus was a bastard or Mary commit adultery, and in the end I was told I just had to have faith to understand to which I replied I guess I'll never understand. We got along fine
after that.
The issue isn't really that religious schools have a corner on head case teachers, because they don't. It's that they don't do BETTER than that. After all, that's the whole reason for parents to pay good $$ to send their children to a private school. I've never seen any evidence that they deliver on either a superior education or an elevated social and moral climate that speaks well of their belief-system.
I did not know this when I was attending the schools, but learned it quickly after I graduated from college and was looking for a teaching job. The Catholic schools were receiving good money to supposedly provide a superior education, but they certainly were not spending in this cause. The salaries for starting teachers at the Catholic schools were 25 to 30 percent less than what the public schools were paying. The better teachers were going for the better money, and the leftovers were getting the Catholic gigs. It was the students who got to discover the reasons why these folks were from the remainder table.
My dad was singled out by one psycho nun at his school in third grade who would force him every few weeks on his way to class to stand in front of her class with his shirt up. He was chunky, and she would take her ruler and smack his stomach, and cluck to the class at how this fat, lazy boy would never be more than a garbage man as a warning against laziness. My dad said it was so scarring that he had a lifelong fear of being overweight, and he still works out religiously to this day constantly monitoring his weight. He ended up being successful in the corporate world, and said he vowed to himself early on he would never turn out as the failure she said he would.
The psycho nun would probably claim that was her goal all along...it was "tough love" she used to make a "man out of him."
I can affirm that some nuns seemed to have a fetish for humiliating students in front of the classes. My best friend in grade school had as his middle name " Jeremiah", something which I knew, but no other student did. He saw it as an embarrassment and was very sensitive to it becoming public knowledge.
One day in class, out of the blue, Sister Mary Frederick told him to stand up and tell the whole class his middle name.
Friend: "I don't want to, Sister."
SMF: "Now come on, you should be proud of the name. It is the name of one of God's great prophets. Tell the class what it is."
Friend: "No, I don't want to."
SMF: " What? You're as bold as brass talking to me that way. Now tell the class your middle name! Right now!"
Friend: .....very softly...." Jeremiah"
SMF: "Louder! So everyone can hear!"
Friend: again very softly..." Jeremiah"
SMF: "I said LOUDER! Are you ashamed of your name!?!"
Friend...this time shouts it out at the top of his voice "JEREMIAH."
SMF: "How dare you raise your voice to me! I sending you to the principle's office."
And she did. And my friend got detention.
The psycho nun would probably claim that was her goal all along...it was "tough love" she used to make a "man out of him."
I can affirm that some nuns seemed to have a fetish for humiliating students in front of the classes. My best friend in grade school had as his middle name " Jeremiah", something which I knew, but no other student did. He saw it as an embarrassment and was very sensitive to it becoming public knowledge.
One day in class, out of the blue, Sister Mary Frederick told him to stand up and tell the whole class his middle name.
Friend: "I don't want to, Sister."
SMF: "Now come on, you should be proud of the name. It is the name of one of God's great prophets. Tell the class what it is."
Friend: "No, I don't want to."
SMF: " What? You're as bold as brass talking to me that way. Now tell the class your middle name! Right now!"
Friend: .....very softly...." Jeremiah"
SMF: "Louder! So everyone can hear!"
Friend: again very softly..." Jeremiah"
SMF: "I said LOUDER! Are you ashamed of your name!?!"
Friend...this time shouts it out at the top of his voice "JEREMIAH."
SMF: "How dare you raise your voice to me! I sending you to the principle's office."
And she did. And my friend got detention.
My mom always jokes that my dad's post traumatic stress disorder was not caused by being shot at on the ground in the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, but from the nuns at his schools.
My mom always jokes that my dad's post traumatic stress disorder was not caused by being shot at on the ground in the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, but from the nuns at his schools.
DH's parents sent DH and his siblings to Seventh Day Adventist boarding academies through their high school years. Imagine being home schooled or having attended a typical two-room, ten-student private Adventist Elementary School, then finding yourself at 14/15 away from home for the first time, living in a dormitory and only be allowed home visits once a month? In addition to their paying the exorbitant tuitions, most of the kids also had to work at some sort of job affiliated with the academy (in DH's case it was a furniture mill owned by the academy). One of his siblings went through the entire Adventist education syestem, K through 12, then an Adventist College, only to leave the SDA religion as soon as he graduated.
Derek Prince, now there's a name from my past.... I was a part of that "style" of christianity, the shepherding thing, in the 70s until it all got too self absorbed for my tastes. People were seriously discussing if we needed to have demons expelled from us or if women should have their heads covered, not so much talk about helping the unfortunate or poor.
Luckily my group was small & unafilliated with any church when I left, but that whole discipleship fad was getting out of control. A few women who had been around for a while were constantly having "visions" & "words of prophecy" for the rest of us, they are still pastors, a very emotionally charged approach to ministry but good theater nonetheless if they are suddenly looking at you with wide eyes & pronouncing what they "see" all around you.
One of the girls in my group, who had recently adopted the habit of always wearing a head covering since the bible said to always be praying, lost the ability of speech & had to be hospitalized, probably for some sort of hysteria, dunno since it happened just after I moved out of state & I never got back in touch with the brethren once I jumped the reservation. I realized I had to get off the crazy train, quite a number of my other friends got involved with a cult & many stayed in for years.
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