Tags
4b, 6b, Pencils, teaching kids
Painting by Lehan Winifred Ramsay
Story by Lehan Winfred Ramsay
I used to teach these disabled kids. They lived in a hospital. Really I didn’t teach them, because they couldn’t learn. I just did things with them, and they learned because they did things. After that I taught these street kids. I had to teach them something real, something important; that was my job. But I had to do this with them in a way that they would accept. So we made stuff together.
These kids didn’t have a future, and people who don’t have a future don’t have a reason. An investment, a motivation. There’s a real difference in fronting up to a room full of kids in a school and teaching them. The whole system is on your side. And theirs. Does that mean it’s easy? School is not easy. We forget as we grow up how hard school is.
I used to teach these primary school kids. I really, really wanted them to learn. So I gave them each a set of really good pencils. 6B. 4B. 2B.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
As a kid, Lehan, I always had bloody HBs. They were good for nothing. Paper tearers, sharpened too pointy and always broke. Mostly illegible. I reckon they rooned my handwriting forever (I laughingly call it writing) – but it was usually bad enough to stop me from coming first in the class. Once my Mom roared it up the teacher for actually saying that in my report card. Mom handed her my coke bottle glasses and asked her how well she could write if she was as blind as a bat. Yeah, but Neil O’Keefe – and Probably Peter Stephens still beat me.
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The 8b, Emm, is magic.
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I bought a packet of pencils from a local newsagent when I was travelling. On the way back I progressively abandoned most of what I had been given and acquired myself which were acts of necessity in unexpected circumstances (drowning, flying, fitting in, otherwise giftless for hosts). The packet of pencils arrived back intact however and some comparative scribbles on the first page of hard back sketcher’s diary that was a gift to me. Delightful article and illustrations.
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All a bit hard for me. bom bom
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Come on Algy. We all know you as a softie !
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Ah, 2B or not 2B…
(I know, I know… but SOMEONE had to say it!)
😉
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Asty, the pencils are not 2B anymore…ok, in the classrooms and for the homework scribblings they are still reluctantly used…
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I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky that they still do homework, Helvi…
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Lehan, I really appreciate how you pack a universe into a few hundred words. Many thanks.
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On the other hand, when ball points came out, headmasters of schools banned them. It was thought it would herald the end of literacy. We had ink-wells in our wooden desks and would be handed out new pen tips when the old ones had worn down. I used to dread being called to the front of the class. Growing boys and all that. ( with tents.)
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Good one Lehan. I wonder if todays kids really still see pencils, let alone have an inkling of different grades of their contents. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. While kids have no problems putting pencils to paper, some, when grown up, can’t do this anymore. They lost the art of putting pen to paper.
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I agree, Gerard, I think that being able to write, or draw, or even do maths long hand requires some fine motor skills that many children will never develop, because they’re too busy ‘texting’, or playing games on their phones. Likewise many won’t ever learn to play music, as they see that downloading drum loops and samples as an ersattz way of playing!
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…so busy texting, they don’t have time to learn about TEXTAs, all those wonderful colours you could put on paper, before texting took over….I still have unopened packets here. Seeing it is school holidays I will take them out…again…see what happens.
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Unbelievable smell, though, Textas !
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