When I read Jamie Cypher’s Maine Observer essay about how much she loved kindergarten (“The place where friendships begin,” Oct. 17) I was struck with how different my experience was.
In 1953, I was still 4 years old, soon to turn 5, and was starting kindergarten at the Catholic school in my town. My mother and I walked from our house together. I was a quiet child and I was nervous.
We trudged up a long stairway to a very dismal, dark hallway. When the nun came out to get me, I was terrified!
She was dressed in this terrible thing! She was gruff, started pulling one of my arms, I wouldn’t let go of my mother’s hand.
They tried to persuade me but I wouldn’t budge, I was so scared! My mother relented and said to the nun that I would return tomorrow. Back home, my mother told my older brother and sister and then my father when he came home from work that I wouldn’t go to school.
I felt humiliated and a failure. At that point, I made up my mind that I would have to go to school and face that scary nun. The classroom may have had letters of the alphabet around the room but there were no inviting colors or places for children to play while learning. Over time, this nun, I don’t remember her name, was stern and mean.
She wouldn’t allow me to go to the bathroom which resulted in my wetting myself – more humiliation. She punished us when she felt we were “bad” by tying our hands and feet.
She ridiculed this boy for wearing his mother’s winter gloves, chances are they probably didn’t have a lot of money. I don’t know why my parents didn’t complain to this nun or transfer me to another school.
This experience which was repeated by other nuns in the following years, made me even quieter, and afraid to speak out in class even though I was a very bright student, afraid to be humiliated – this followed me in all of my school years including grad school.
Finally, in one job, I slowly began to gain confidence and find my voice. But by then I was in my 50s. So many painful years!
— Special to the Telegram
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