Message Forum

MM,

YOU ARE CORRECT! I debated "Principles vs. Problems", but lost.

Jim

04/14/17 09:26 PM

#1130

Julie Carpenter

Joe--I never really kept up with the nuns after I graduated, so don't know who left and who stayed. Thanks for the notice about Sr. Vincent Ferrer. I looked up her obituary on the Dispatch site. She was really a great teacher.

Someone also just mentioned Sister Constantine (sp.?). I think I remember her as a good teacher, but I'm a little foggy about her. English sounds familiar, but just can't be sure. Cleaning out these old cobwebs is quite a chore these days.

04/14/17 10:26 PM

#1131

Lawrence Foster

MM and Jim - I am not sure you are that wrong about the "Problems" vs. "Principles" question. I distinclty remembered it as Problems of Democracy not Principles. This conversation is the first time I have heard it called Principles. Like you MM I questioned my memory but seeing others who thoughts are similar to my memory makes me wonder if some of the teachers might have called it the way they saw it at the time. On another note, I really enjoyed Sister Vincent Ferrer as a teacher. While it is wonderful for a teacher to be passionate about the subject they teach I think it is equally or more important to value teaching people. In my experience in her classroom she valued more the teaching of people. The subject matter was just the mechanism she used.

Joe and Julie - Sister Antonio did indeed leave the convent, marry and have maybe 3 or 4 children. Prior to becoming a nun her name was Mary Anne McGovern. She was one of 3 older sisters of my IC grade school classmate John McGovern who lived on East Como Avenue in Clintonville. John did high school at a boarding school in Wisconsin but we maintained our friendship for many years and we would get together when he was home for Christmas and summer. Summer after sophomore year John was home and we were headed out somewhere but he said first he had to go visit his sister who was a nun at Watterson. I said fine, as long as we don't run into Sister Antonio whom I had had for geometry sophomore year. I said some other things that were not true about her but were more just a reflection of my immaturity. John laughed said that Sister Antonio was indeed his sister and he agreed that, at times, she was the way I described her.

There were times over the holidays that I had dinner at their house and it took me a while to get used to calling her Mary Anne and his one other sister who was also a nun, Betty. They were in their habits and I couldn't get my head around it all.

Then to make it even a smaller world my father told me that he and John's mother, Mildred Haid, had both graduated from St. Mary's HS in Delaware (1926 or 27) and had been friends and dated and hung around in the same social circles. Mildred and her husband Francis's graves are within a hundred yards of my parents at St. Mary's Cemetery in Dalaware.

At Mr. McGovern's funeral visitation in Delaware around 1992 or 93 we all met up again. Mary Anne lived in Arizona, was married and had children. Her husband was a librarian at either Arizona Univ. or Arizona State Univ. Both of us being librarians he and I got along fine. After the visitation that night John and I were in charge of getting the beer (some things never change from high school/college days) and taking it back to the family home on Rte. 36/37 where we all socialized for a few hours.

04/15/17 12:04 AM

#1132

Janie Albright (Blank)

I had a man for POD but don't recall who. Does anyone know who it was? I also recall it being Problems of Democracy. When my kids took it they called it Government.

My nun story is about Sr Miguel after she left the convent. I was at a committee meeting at St. Paul's in Westerville around 1973. I was introduced to a woman named Veronica Searles. She said she was teaching English at Westerville HS. She was pregnant and close to her due date. She seemed incredibly familiar but I couldn't place her. That weekend my mom gave me some boxes of things from high school and one contained some of my textbooks. One was My Latin II book! Oh my it hit me immediately that woman was Sr. Miguel! Later I asked her about it and sure enough it was her. Apparently I had not made such a lasting impression on her. Lol

04/15/17 01:09 AM

#1133

Silly me. I thought it was Pedantics On Demand.

04/15/17 01:46 AM

#1134

Janie,

I think they did change it to "Government". Kind of like changing History and Geography to "Social Sciences" which means our kids know almost nothing about History or Geography. They don't even know what the word Geography is!

Saw a recent survey a few years back asking college students a few questions:

1) Who did we win our Independence from? They couldn't answer - not one of them

2) Who won the Civil War? - no answer - (one kid asked "Don't even know who fought in it") - seriously!

3) Who is (was) the (previous) Vice President? Only one correctly guessed Joe Biden and sounded very uncertain of herself.

4) Name the characters of "Jersey Shore" - they all knew every one of the cast.

I'm sure this could have been staged, but I know kids like this. Don't know what century WWII was fought. Or that Women and African-Americans didn't used to have the right to vote.

My kids in a very good Catholic grade school in Denver in the 70's and 80's wrote paper after paper on why not to do drugs, but had no idea where the equator was on a globe, or Japan, or the Nile River, or the Pacific Ocean, or Argentina. And when some of the young teachers proposed letting our kids bring calculators into 4th grade - "to speed up the class", we parents practically rioted at a PTA meeting. They backed off - reluctantly - one teacher actually accused the parents of "medling in our business".

I guess now they have stopped teaching "cursive" in many public schools. I forget which way we learned cursive at OLP - the "Palmer Method" or the "Zaner-Bloser" method.

04/15/17 09:24 AM

#1135

Robert Berkemer

Janie, how about Bud Dorian for POD?

04/15/17 10:54 AM

#1136

Janie Albright (Blank)

Mr. Dorrian! Yes, Bob, thanks!

Dave, when my oldest daughter started high school at a public school I was getting frustrated because I didn't feel they were reading or writing enough reports on what they read. I proceeded to say how we were assigned a classic to read every six weeks and wrote wrote wrote about it! He said you were taught by nuns. We have a life. Takes too long to grade. I proceeded to introduce my children to these great books myself. And don't even get me started on cursive writing which I think we called script. The mark of a good education will never be more obvious than when those from the better schools can read and write it and the others will appear illiterate.

04/15/17 01:32 PM

#1137

Kathleen Wintering (Nagy)

Janie,

I could tell you some intersting stories about my two daughters and daughter in law who all have been, or still are teachers. One (Sara, Watterson '91) in inner city L.A. She made her kids read and write reports all the time. After 4 years with the same kids, her class' scores kept climing while the parrallel class (taught by an older local woman who hated her job - and resented Sara's success) had an absolute flat line of improvemet over the same four years. Sara loved the kids, loved her job, but left due to the insane politics of the L.A. school system. Youngest daughter Megan (Watterson '93 or '94?) taught Montessori in Lake Oswego (Portland, OR) and after three years at $24,000 a year with no benefits, gave it up. She loved it too - and adored the kids. My daugther in law teaches special reading in Portland and is doing pretty well, but it's a challenge with the utter lack of support from the parents.

I had an older cousin (academic all american in tennis at Notre Dame about 1956) who was a tenured English prof. at Univ. of Missouri for many years and he reminded me that the current group of teachers (about 20 years ago) are (were) themselves the least educated group in the history of the world - and rather poorly paid I might add. Makes you realize what a lack of appreciation we had for those "nuns" at the time.

I love this story Keith Groff told me some years back. He who was always getting compliments from his fellow proffessors at Boise State (long before his two Fullbrigh Scholar years in Egypt and Brazil). Keith said the other professors used to always tell him something like (going from memory ?) he "had an extraordinary grasp of sentence structure and writing skills". His answer was always - "I was taught by Dominican nuns".

They did a hell of a job for $240 a month plus a lousy retirement plan. Or was it $140 a month?

04/15/17 02:45 PM

#1138

I had Mr. Dorian as well, and I thought he did an excellent job of teaching the class. I always considered him one of my best teachers. But I am with the person who thinks the class was called Problems of Democracy! Maybe the students renamed it! Back to working on Easter Dinner! Hope everyone has a great one! Kathy Wintering

04/15/17 02:47 PM

#1139

Kathleen Wintering (Nagy)

Janie, I just put an article from one of the Chicago newspapers on my refridge! It said the teaching of cursive writing is coming back! Good schools never stopped! Kathy W.N.

04/15/17 02:58 PM

#1140

There is an interesting theme occurring here: the good Dominican Sisters and our lay teachers were excellent and dedicated educators. I could not agree more. It is a shame that there are not more like them today. Many public schools and their teachers are unable, for various reasons, to provide what our class would consider a quality education. Cursive, sentence structure, reading comprehension, history and so many other topics are being ignored. Not to mention Latin! But these kids can text hours a day using 146 or so "characters" to convey such important messages as "RU RED E 4 UR D8". Good grief, even the Navajo Codetalkers would have trouble with some of their texts! (And I'll wager that most of them probably have never heard of those Navajos or much else about WWII.)

Like Kathy, I did see an article about the return of cursive. Maybe there is a thread of hope...

04/15/17 10:36 PM

#1141

Jim, Loved your mention of the Navajo Code Talkers. (my, how we do get off on some odd topics on this forum).

I had known that obscure but fascinating story for some years and saw a most intersting tribute to them. I was driving my oldest daughter Sara to Los Angeles and wanted her to see my favorite place on earth - Monument Valley in southern Utah. We stopped in the Navajo town of (I think?) Kayenta (or Teek nos Pos?) and went to a Navajo tribe-owned Burger King. (the Navajo tribe is very enterprising with huge cattle, timber, and uranium industires, and their own government capital building in Window Rock Ariz.).

The entire decor of the Burger King is a museum tribute (photos, plaques of explanation, etc.) to the history of the famous "Navajo Code Talkers" - a group drafted by the U.S. military in WWII to become a special communication unit. They were used to send all high security messages in the Pacific by Navajo language. The Japanese could never break the code and figure it out. They were not recognized until years later when most were dead - given a commendation by President Reagan. Also the subject of a hollywood film staring Nicolas Cage (but I guess it was quite poorly done).

04/15/17 11:19 PM

#1142

Dave,

Years ago - or as an Indian might say, "many moons ago" - I had a long term patient who I think was a Navajo. He was retired Army so he had been in the service for at least 20 years which means he was probably WWII vintage. He did not talk much about his military experiences but I wonder if he was a Code Talker. He was a deeply pigmented red man who was very much involved with tribal business, customs and ceremonies. Unfortunately, one of his medical problems was vitiligo which eventually involved his face turning it quite pale in a patchy distribution. One day he walked into my office and, from a distance, his face appeared it's normal red color. He stated that he was so embarrassed at tribal meetings that he had concocted a substance from earth materials that he applied to the affected areas with great success. This allowed him to maintain his status in the tribe. He was a proud Indian and patriot.

04/16/17 12:06 PM

#1143

Ok doc step into my office and let me give your grammar a quick check-up.

It should be: "Who, I think, was a Navajo."

Take out that subordinate clause "I think" and you will realize that "who" is the subject and "was" is the verb.

Nominative case.

Case closed.

Ok. Now, turn your head and cough for me.

04/16/17 03:24 PM

#1144

Mike,

Mea culpa (which in today's lingo would translate to "My bad!"). I should have proof read it better. It has now been edited and the correct nominative case applied.

A note of hygienic precaution: when doing those exams during cold and flu season, one should always wear a mask as a lot of patients fail to turn their heads. Also, beware of old men with leaky bladders.

04/16/17 03:30 PM

#1145

There you go with the Latin again.

04/16/17 03:31 PM

#1146

And thanks for the laugh.

04/16/17 03:39 PM

#1147

Tu es gratissimum!

04/16/17 09:33 PM

#1148

Help! Somebody put a stop to this!

04/16/17 10:01 PM

#1149

Linda Weiner (Bennett)

HE IS RISEN, ALLELUIA! Happy Easter season to all.

04/16/17 11:37 PM

#1150

And the crazy thing is, HE did it for me - and for you!

Crazy!

04/18/17 10:07 AM

#1151

Does anybody remember how the stores would have an Easter promotion and give away little baby bunny rabbits? Or little baby chicks? So cute, but my baby chick died in a few days. I think that happened so often the practice was stopped some years later. I got a bunny one time and he grew so big he became a problem and we had to take him out to some farm waaaay out in the country - on Bethel Road. The farmer raised rabbits among other things and I think he made out rather well every year a few weeks after Easter.

04/18/17 09:54 PM

#1152

Hey Jim meant to tell you I spent some time in Monument Valley a while back. It is certainly epic. I was with a group on a tour of people and places connected with John Ford westerns. There is a famous John Wayne quote about why he filmed so many pictures there, and his response was: "Because this is where God put the west."

04/18/17 10:24 PM

#1153