It would seem that years ago teachers in rural Prince Edward Island started to teach young. Anne Shirley was not seventeen when she started to teach her one room school.
I was twenty when I took my first class as a temporary teacher while waiting for my A-levels result. Trying my very best, I lasted three months. What I dreaded most was punishing the students for not doing their homework. It was a premier school that I taught in, there were loads of different types of homework everyday. I was given the second worst class. Looking back, those students were not stupid, some might have been a little slow. The others all have different learning styles. But how is a body to teach fifty students who had short attention spans, could hardly sit still and all too eager to interrupt the teacher?
It was easier to concede defeat and resign I did. The next two months I substituted as a typist in a faculty office in the local university. The office job was more restful compared to a classroom. It was interesting to meet with different types of university professors or lecturers. A few of them were rather absent minded. Little did I expect that one day I would have a daughter studying in its hallowed halls. Elizabeth was accepted and started one semester ago.
That same year one of my former class mates got married. It was not as romantic as Anne Shirley's Miss Lavender's wedding. I still remember the photo of the brides' friends, every single one of us wear glasses. That was way before the advent of contact lens. How the groom's men laughed and made fun of us! That day I had a glimpse of the streak of the meanness in my friend's new husband. Well, today he is a millionaire twice over. My dear friend lives in a mansion and drives a top model auto. Unfortunately I heard from her youngest that the father has a ungovernable temper and all the older children took the father's side against the little mother. It is well that the youngest loves her...
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