SchoolMarm RulersHand - Kindergarten Nightmares on 5th Street

school·marm: noun \-ˌmä(r)m\

1: a woman who is a schoolteacher especially in a rural or small-town school.
2: a person who exhibits characteristics attributed to schoolteachers (as strict adherence to arbitrary rules).

Okay, before my long time school friends start getting on my case about this assemblage installation ... I don't have real bad memories at all of my grade school days... oh, well, with the exception of being afraid to get off the school bus when it was a rainy morning because the boys would dash off first to grab all the worms that gathered on the cement sidewalks after a rain, and they'd delight in throwing them at the girls as they ran into the school ... where were the teachers back then? I really was deathly afraid to get off the bus when the boys did that to the girls!! (yes, I am still scarred from it..haha! *L*)



Anyway ... I found this schoolmarm-ish lady, and the old wooden blocks at GoodWill on the same day, the old chair is from the closet at our Church, an old relic that used to be used in the Sunday School rooms, I probably sat on it as a child myself.
I had some old rulers I added to the end of the arms as hands ... remember when the punishment for bad behavior was to be smacked on the knuckles with a ruler? .. this schoolmarm is kind of like an Edward Scissorshand kind of character, I suppose ... Schoolmarm Rulershand..*L*

I remember learning my ABC's in kindergarten, now days the kids should know that BEFORE they reach kindergarten! But I recall repeating, and repeating and repeating them, over and over and over.

Despite this assemblage and what I am sharing, I had a nice school experience, for the most part, although some kids didn't. We used to have "mats" we used for nap time, I remember our teacher not allowing kids to go to the bathroom during nap time, and often there were little puddles afterward as we gathered our mats and stuffed them into our cubbyholes.

When I was older, and worked at the bank full time during the time our older son was in gradeschool, I would take my lunch hour at the same time that he needed to be picked up from kindergarten. It was probably not a usual thing to have had the same kindergarten teacher that your child had ... but it was the same teacher I had as a child. When I'd come to pick up my son, I recall one young boy sitting at a table, with his head down, crying and crying.. and it wasn't just once or twice I'd see him that way. I felt so bad for him, and wondered what had happened that made him so sad as he waited for his bus or his mom to pick him up. He was, and still is a long time friend of our son, John... wonder if Ryan recalls the incidents as something devastating still, or if it was just a worried Mom here caring for another child?

At any rate... here is a rendition of what could be called a KINDERGARTEN NIGHMARE.

(I am in a bizzare state of mind lately I think? haha!)