September 3, 2025
-by Rankin MacDonald
“The times the are a-changing,” a pretty decent poet wrote a long time ago, as the youth today perceive it.
That is if they know about the great poetry of Robert Zimmerman at all.
Well, school starts on Thursday and the reviews are mixed. Some are eager to go back, while others want summer to last forever.
Kids don’t realize, I suppose some do, that this is the best time of their lives – free room and board and no anxiety-driven adult problems.
Today there are even people who help our youth if they have emotional problems.
I don’t remember kids having emotional problems when I went to school a hundred years ago, more or less (Mother St. Daniel), and one wonders if we were in a more nurturing society or if it was something we didn’t notice. It isn’t the vaccines!
There must be a study on different eras.
Going to school way back then was hands-on learning.
Sometimes the strap met those hands.
Spare the rod, spoil the child, eh?
Well we’ve gone too far sparing the rod, and self-discipline is a value many young people often don’t adhere to.
We had nuns teaching us.
Brilliant women, for the most part, who were ahead of their time educationally. If it was today, they would be the heads of something secular or religious.
My first teacher was Mother St. Rose. She was the nicest person I’d ever met. She treated us all like we were her children. I caught up with her in university. She still had the smile.
She taught us how to read and write and then sent us on to my Aunt Wassie.
On the last day of grade primary she came in and said, “Guess what?”
We all yelled, “What???”
“You all graded,” she said.
One of the girls loved her so much she walked back to grade primary on the first day in grade one and stayed for another year.
After Wassie, there was Annie Bell, Ms. Grant, Janie, Mother St. Brigida, Sissy, Anne MacIsaac, Mother St. Joseph, Helen MacDonald, Mother St. Daniel, and then we went to the new school that has since been laid to rest.
In this time, the Protestants invaded us Catholics when their school closed. My grandmother, Mary Ann (Donald Ban), was once the janitor there. And we learned a great truth – the Protestants were the same as we were and soon became our best friends and girlfriends.
It was the beginning of the end of the animosity between the religions.
In the new school, the teachers taught all different subjects, which we thought was cool.
We had some great teachers, a few duds, but there was so much to learn from them because they were scholars and would make your future education a lot easier if you listened to their minds. It is right to say their names. Name yours!
The electronic generation is in control and we can only hope our youth can manage it well.
I wrote my mother letters. You kids won’t.
But text your parents well.
You have two things to remember well starting Thursday.
You have an excellent education system with great teachers, so listen to their wisdom.
But most of all, the greatest thing in life is to treat one another with kindness.
Have a great year.
You’re a rising star!
