I'm part of a group where we discuss a slew of topics that range from anything to everything and a good time is usually had by all. Last night one of the ladies posted a link for a page that has the title "24 Signs You Went To Catholic School". Some of the observations and pictures were spot on and rather funny. A result of the posting was a discussion with friends about the merits of a Catholic school education and the nuns who taught in them all those years ago when I was a student.
The thing that most surprised me about the conversation was the fact that I was slightly insulted by someone who had never attended a Catholic school making light of it. I could only compare it to how you feel if you hear someone making fun of one of your siblings. It's perfectly fine if you do it but god help the outsider who does it.
I was born into a Catholic family in 1948 and am part of the huge Baby Boom that has been making waves worldwide since it began in 1946. I grew up in Philadelphia, a city that is proud of its history of Catholic education. There was never a question about where I would go to school. I would go to the parish school and then onto the all girls high school in my area.
In the fifties and sixties I would guess that 95% of Catholic school teachers were nuns. As with any large group of people there were some good and some bad apples in the barrel of teachers I came in contact with over the years. There were definitely women who were too old to be standing in front of a classroom everyday and there were others who were too young and inexperienced. The thing is that it was because of the sacrifice of these women that I received a great education. I grant you that there were nuns who were quick with a ruler over the knuckles but they were keeping control of classrooms bursting at the seams and without their discipline it would have been chaos.
Think about the fact that there were between fifty and sixty of us in a classroom and one nun did all the work. There were no aids or helpful moms who were there to lend a hand. Sister had to handle it all herself. In the grade school I attended there were six classes in each grade. That's a lot of kids. In my eight years there I had one teacher who was not a nun and there were only two lay teachers in the school. If one of those poor nuns was too sick to make it from the convent to the school there was no substitute. The nuns in the rooms on either side assigned desk work and traveled back and forth to make sure all was quiet and orderly.
When I went to high school it was a whole new world. From dealing with one order of nuns I now had eight orders of nuns to deal with. Again there were very few lay teachers. In my four years of high school I had three lay teachers (and one of those was for gym). Think about the fact that there were eight periods a day plus home room and that's a lot of teachers. Nuns were the backbone of the Catholic school system. I'm of the opinion that these women, some of whom still give me the willies, provided me with a great education. Any weak spots were mine and not theirs. Looking back I can see that many of my teachers were probably in their late twenties to mid thirties when I was in high school and were, for the most part, very nice women.
I graduated high school in '66 and did not go on to college. I went to work, as did most of my friends, and missed much of the upheaval of the late sixties and early seventies. While folks in colleges were protesting the war in Vietnam I was volunteering at the USO. While my contemporaries were "Turning On, Tuning In and Dropping Out" I was working hard and saving my money so I could travel. But I digress.
While there was social unrest in the cities there were winds of change blowing through the convents too. In the seventies many of the women who had donned habits took them off and left their orders and their classrooms behind. They found that they could do social work and help others without being bound by a habit and vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Lay teachers became the rule rather than the exception. Catholic schools went from being the default educational choice to being a luxury that most families could not afford. Those absent nuns were replaced by lay teachers who needed to be paid and insured and the only way a school system could do that was to charge ever increasing tuition. There was a chain reaction that took place that is still being felt today.
I have to say that having gone through twelve years of school with nuns that there was a time I considered that life. I found I enjoyed having a bit of freedom and some spending money more. I had over thirty high school classmates that went into religious orders and as far as I know only three remain.
What it all boils down to is that while Catholic schools and the nuns that manned them may be a source of jokes they were also a gift. I firmly believe that the education I received is far superior to today's. I think that the thousands of women who were in school when I was would, for the most part, agree. (There were between three and four thousand girls in my high school while I was there from the fall of '62 to the late spring of '66.) If I had the chance to go back and do it all over would I? I honestly don't know. I certainly wouldn't be the woman I am now without the schools I attended and the women who taught me.
Thanks for reading. The link to the site that started all this is below.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjkiebus/signs-you-went-to-catholic-school-6ygq
If you look at #7 you'll see a Sister of Saint Joseph and a girl wearing a uniform almost exactly like the one I used to wear. (Our jumper was Air Force Blue with a 'Blessed Mother' blue blouse.)
