Sister Mary Paschal was a rogue. An energetic seventy-something nun, she ran her early middle school classroom like a laboratory, in stark contrast to the mean and military Mrs. Smolen of the year before. We worked in groups before it was fashionable and made messes and got into loud arguments and even cut pictures out of the Encylopedia to decorate our projects. I remember making a pamphlet called "Shipbuilding in Japan" and another called "The Wonders of Switzerland," where I pasted pictures of the Alps, cheese, and watches. And there was "The Treasures of the Middle East," in which I drew camels and copied verbatim next to a clipped picture of a mysterious Arab man the words, "Eyes fierce as a desert hawk's, ..." although I don't recall what came next or even what the point was. How I dearly loved those words! Sr. Paschal didn't give a whit if we copied stuff. I think she imagined that swimming in all those sophisticated words and glossy pictures would inspire us to love and absorb language and culture. It sorta worked in my case.
Sister Paschal also made us think. She is the one who ordained us editors of our own newspapers while we were learning about the influence of Horace Greeley during the Civil War. The catch was that each of us got a different state and she tricked us into picking it before we knew quite what was in store. Since we were in Buffalo, no one wanted boring old New York, and besides, Horace Greeley had that one down pat. I picked Virginia because that's where my handsome and oh-so-polite boy cousins lived, right across from the Rappahannock River, thick in Civil War country.
But then we got the news: We had to write an editorial about the pervasive Secesh talk, and it had to be true to form. If we had picked a Southern state we were stuck defending slavery. To be clear, there was no debate in any of our minds about the righteous side of this war. We were products of an entrenched Northern sensibility, a Catholic school focused on social justice, and a teacher so ancient and egalitarian that we thought she was herself an authentic abolitionist. I remember feeling sorry for my Virginia relatives, in that pitying way, wondering how on earth they handled their Civil War unit, given that their geographically connected ancestors were so vividly in the wrong.
No, this was an explicit promotion of what educators today would call critical thinking. Sr. Paschal wanted us to see--no, to be--the other side. This exercise of putting my mind--for real--into the thinking and circumstances of another has been invaluable to me.
Here is what I wrote. I had to think hard to come up with something, but I also had to do some reading. (That Sr. Paschal was a sly one.) I remember pecking it out on my mom's typewriter on that onionskin kind of paper.
I'm hoping you can read the words. The last paragraph says, "Our Constitution of 1787 was but a compact, or agreement, between the independent states. Therefore, when a state does not like the policies of the central government, it has the right to withdraw from this compact. I believe Virginia should secede from the Union and stay loyal to our South."
Some close-ups:
I think I was around 11 or 12, and this was in the 1970's. I found it a couple of years ago, along with a math pamphlet I wrote called "Let's Fidget with Digits."
Is it weird to say "Happy Anniversary, Civil War!" ?
Yeah, I thought so.
As you were.
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Congrats on the EP!
And I'm with Padraig. You were lucky to have Sr. Paschal. The nuns I had in grade school should not have been in the classroom.
This sounds very much like the projects my evil socialist Norwegian teachers would give us back in the 70's. We loved it, copied a lot, and learned a lot.
Oh, and just to be clear, this particular assignment wasn't copied from anywhere. I remember struggling really hard to come up with this stuff.
Please post the "fidget with digits" one next!
Was there any class discussion about what each of you wrote? It seems like that might have been interesting coming from students of that age.
I am trying to think back to my days at the age of 11 or 12, and I have a sneaking suspicion they were quite different from yours.
Without going into the details, I ended up living with 2 step-brothers of Hispanic lineage who attended a private Catholic school (I went to public school). At any rate, these two step-brothers and their Catholic school relatives and friends were responsible for my first thorough inebriation during which I apparently blacked-out enough that I had to be informed of some of my behavior the next day -- there were some things I apparently did of which I had NO memory whatsoever.
;-O
It occurs to me that the Catholics inspire philosophical thinking in a variety of ways, many of which might be considered collateral damage or unintended consequences, whether good or bad.
I know that's all fairly irrelevant to the Civil War, I suppose, but this was what your post called into memory.
;-)
And I think it is a bit strange to say "'happy' anniversary, Civil War", but ... somehow, coming from you, it seems less so.
Enjoyed your post.
R
Cool that you saved this. Cool that she assigned it. Greeley was full of it anyway. ;)