In this year I attend pre-school. This is a hot button issue right now in Iowa. The new (old) Governor wants to eliminate all funding for pre-school programs. With most parents working these days, I think a program that starts kids off with social and educational programming early is an excellent way to support our children and families. I hope something is done to preserve the pre-school programs. It would be a shame if they were eliminated.
Well, my pre-school was a private one held in a home. The Wantese (sp) Preschool. It was run by a nice older lady. The house always smelled like paste. The kind of homemade paste you make with flour and water. A little musty. There were about twenty kids that attended preschool there. We would play games. We would do arts and crafts. And each day after we had a snack, we would lay on our mats to take a nap. Usually for a half hour. I don't think anyone really ever fell asleep. We would just lay there and listen to the farm report playing on the transistor radio. "Corn is up 1.5 cents today, wheat is up 2 cents today, hogs are trading at $37 a head." I think I may have drifted off a few times I guess...
Also, this was the year that I started taking swimming lessons. See, my mother did not know how to swim. She probably still does not know how to swim. And she made a declaration that her kids were all going to learn how to swim. Well, after being attacked by a nest of sandflies on the beach when I was two and living with a woman who was afraid of the water herself....I was deathly afraid of the water. I would cry and kick and scream if anyone tried to take me into a pool. So, making me go to swimming lessons was not something I looked forward to doing. I was stressed and upset just pulling up to the building where they were held. I would sit on the edge of the pool and not move. The instructor was a local middle school gym teacher whom my mother had (and did not like) when she attended school. Her name was Mrs. Hasenwinkel. She was a beast. She was a tall woman. She had pasty white skin and a big curly afro hair style. She just seemed mean. She did not appreciate that I was afraid of the water. She would drag me into the pool and take me to the deep end. There she would hold me about six feet from the side of the pool and tell me if I wanted to get out, I would have to swim there. Well, she would let go of me....I would start kicking and flailing about....and I would sink to the bottom of the pool. At some point I don't think I even tried to make it to the edge anymore. I did not want this method to work out for her.
Many lessons later, I just eventually began to swim. I know it was independent of Mrs. Hasenwinkel's instruction. And I know she was there to see it. At this stage, she just seemed to tolerate me and did not insist on "teaching" me anything anymore. I felt vindicated somehow. I had learned how to swim and also not given in to her methods. I was really developing my rebellious nature already.
Soon, I was hearing that I would be ready to play sports......oh no!
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