Mo's Manic Monday - Can
Posted: Monday, March 10, 2008 by Travis Cody in
Welcome to another Manic Monday with Morgen. Don't forget to cruise by MM HQ at It's A Blog Eat Blog World. Today's word is Can.
My post today doesn't actually use the word Can. It's more about my determination as a boy to do something that I thought was important.
Remember the ABC song?
Pre-school used to be called nursery school. I only went to nursery school for a short time. My folks had sitters for me who were retired elementary school teachers. But they were also disabled, one in a wheel chair and the other using a walker. So ultimately they couldn't keep up with a 3-4 year old boy and I joined other kids in nursery school for about 6 months before I stared Kindergarten.
The first time I got in trouble at nursery school was because I refused to sing the ABC song. I had heard this song before on Sesame Street, but it had never really interested me. My mom read to me and so did my sitters. I was always fascinated by the stories, but even more by all the shapes on the pages. Clearly those shapes were making the stories and I always thought that was amazing!
The nursery school I went to was at the elementary school. My mom started working at the school library, so it made sense for me to go there. I was so happy because the walls of the little classroom were covered with those shapes I saw in my books! And the teacher gave me pieces of paper with those shapes on them, and then she told me to trace the shapes.
I wanted to be able to make the shapes by myself, without tracing them. I thought that's why I wasn't with my sitters anymore. I thought it was time to learn the shapes.
Now back to the ABC song...such a simple, catchy little melody that taught kids the order of the letters of the Alphabet.
Alphabet. That was the first power word I learned. And when I learned that the word Alphabet was what those shapes were called...well! No silly little song was good enough for such an important thing!
I wouldn't sing it. And I would interrupt the song to ask about the Alphabet. I wanted the teacher to stop and explain the shapes for each of the sounds the other kids were happily singing.
You see, the shapes matched to the sounds made the letters! I just had to learn the letters and what they meant. So I practiced by myself until I could speak the letters of the Alphabet in the proper order, not sing them.
I wouldn't say the Alphabet until I could do it straight through without a mistake. I would recite the letters quietly by myself, until one day I could say it all the way through, over and over, without a mistake. Then I said it for my parents. And then I said it for my teacher.
Once I could say the letters, I didn't want the letter tracing paper anymore. I wanted blank paper so I could make all the letters myself. And then I wanted to make the words I saw in my books.
It was time for me to go to Kindergarten.
A rebel in preschool. Wow, Trav, you really have always pushed the boundaries, huh? *grin*