Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine, class. If you pay attention, and listen closely, then at some time later in your life, much, much later, you will remember what you have learned here today. And when that time comes, you will say, (to your spouse, your friend, the police, your priest, the nurse or the man with the hearse)…”there was this place and there were these people and they told me about clarks, scotts and rogers and how it was so simple to understand other people if only I understood the Wakefield Doctrine! I see now that they were so very right…it is just sad that it is so very, very late for me…if only I had…written a Comment“!
Well, it’s not too late, binyons! You can participate, join in on the fun. We are only a third of the way through the 90 Day Challenge, plenty of time to turn this bus around. Speaking of buses, lets make that the topic of today’s Post! (and the Wakefield Doctrine Lesson of the Day).
First Day of School Trauma!
Alright! All-right! I’ll go first…
… oddly enough, I have no memory of 1st grade but I do remember that my 2nd grade Teacher’s name was Mrs. Brennan. Starting with the 2nd grade I attended a parochial school and for the most part all the Teachers at Our Lady of Mercy (who doesn’t hear James Brown, “mer-cey!!”)School were nuns. Real nuns, not just sallyfield-looking-hey-just-a-normal-girl-who-happens-to-be-a-nun, no sir! These were Nuns of the Order of the Sisters of Mercy. En regalia, full-dress nuns. For those unfamiliar with the look, we’re talking about white on black habits, with face and hands as the only clue that there is a human there, never mind a female human. Damn! (The borg look like nudists compared to the Sisters of Mercy back in the early 60s.)
(Back to my First Day of School Trauma). Arriving in class, the very first thing I learned from a classmate was, “if you don’t eat all your lunch, they make you eat in front of the whole school and for the first day of school they always serve something called Welsh Rabbit”. I spent the entire morning of the first day of school in the Second Grade in fear of what would happen when I refused to eat the Welsh Rabbit. We are talking “worry” on a level such that I was so focused on trying to come up with a plan to avoid the lunchroom embarrassment, that I almost got sent back to the First Grade.I could not have spelled my own name when called on, cause I was busy! I had to think of something! Sitting in one of those desks with the fliptop writing surface and the seat attached and the whole thing held together by a wrought-iron frame. Somehow I survived. I look back now, from the vantage point of the Wakefield Doctrine, can there be any doubt that there was a clark sitting in that totally uncomfortable seat in September, trying to figure his way out of spot that (he) was barely equipped to deal with.
( …Pero Principal Clarke, lo que Wakefield Lección Doctrina del Día vamos a tener de su historia muy interesante?… )
Why thank you, Miguel, for that reminder. The Lesson of the Day is more an illustration of the clarklike personality. The reaction of the 8 year old clark in this story is that his response to a threat was to try and think of a plan to avoid the embarrassment that he perceived to be waiting for him at lunch (he really, really hated cheese). The saying at the Doctrine is: clarks think, scotts act and rogers feel.
Alright DownSprings! Next?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obIo19DI_kk
About clarkscottroger
FEAR. clarks spend their entire lives living with fear – trying to overcome it, face it, run away from it but damn, can never quite shake it. Fear has amazing power(s), not only in a present sense but in a future sense also. I wrote a Comment at this blog some time back about clarks being the ultimate “planners”. When faced with a challenge, in this case, how to avoid eating a Welsh “Rabbit”, the clark very often will go into “planning” mode.
A plan that is predicated on events that have not yet happened. Unless clarks are imbued with divine powers, they/we cannot know the future. (except that knowledge of the Wakefield Doctrine, (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers) can in fact help one to predict what oneself and those around them may do in any given scenario)
As clarks spend time in a future that does not yet exist, they miss out on the very present that will affect said future. Had the young Progenitor clark said to himself “lunch isn’t for 3 hours yet, who cares what they’re having” he would have avoided the self-imposed embarrassment that came when he was called on in class while he was doing his “planning”. One might say, ‘had the young clark been more scottian (who cares)or rogerian (everyone will be having Welsh Rabbit) all would have been avoided’.
Interesting that this was noticed by our young clark at such an early age. The “formative” years are so very, very crucial. The question oft asked at this blog is how/when does one eventually become predominantly a clark, scott or roger? What are the events that precede this “becoming”?
How was I to know that in first grade, while acting strictly in the here and now (scottian) and talking, talking, talking to my classmates (rogerian ) when I was not supposed to that, that was my defining “clark” moment? Maybe it was.
(In my ‘First Day of School Trauma’ contribution) I will simply say that for talking when I was not supposed, my punishment was to stand in front of the entire first grade class opening and closing my mouth (as if talking) until I was told to stop. I was absolutely mortified. I was embarrassed in front of my peers and mostly certainly would have been laughed at by them if it were not for the utter fear elicited by …..Sister Mary Cedric.
WOW!!! Talk about flash backs! It’s weird, but I too can’t remember anything about early school (kindergarten and first grade). Not a single memory. When my family moved from Illinois to New Jersey I attended Holy Cross. I was in 2nd grade and remember that clearly. Loved egg salad sandwiches. Remember we had to put our lunches in the back closet instead of a refrigerator where they would ferment all morning? And then those little cartons of milk that were always warm? Well, I loved egg salad sandwiches and would bring them to school for lunch all of the time. And all of the kids used to move their desks away from me. Fuck ‘em I thought to myself while I enjoyed my lunch. Looking back I’d have to say that was the first glimpse of my scottian nature as opposed to the previously mentioned Blood, Sweat and Tears stuff.
Yeah, those nuns were something else. I remember a really mean one called Sister Chairatina (sp?). We used to call her Sister Cherry Bomb. She was one mean, retched nun. There was this kid in my class (Jimmy Reynolds) who never paid attention and was always disrupting the class. Looking back I think he had ADHD. Anyway, Sister Cherry Bomb used to take him out of class and bang his head against the wall. The concrete wall. No lie.
One morning when the school bus pulled into the school parking lot Sister Chairatina was out there and we started chanting “…run her over, run her over….” Needless to say, the bus driver wasn’t too thrilled about that.
And then there was the time that my brother was caught with gum in his mouth. The nun made him put it in his hair for the rest of the day.
Man, those nuns got away with murder.
And of course there were the nun jokes. “What’s black and white and re(a)d all over? A bloody nun.” Shit I still remember the damn secret school song about tossing a nun down the stairs. I’ll spare you the lyrics.
But I digress. When I read the post all of those memories came flooding back. And now I am absolutely irrevocably certain that the scott in me came to life.
Thankfully in 6th grade I started attending public school. I was finally free from the wrath of those ungodly nuns. And I didn’t have to wear a uniform (I bet all you rogers loved wearing uniforms). How liberating that was!
OK, class dismissed.
We public school kids weren’t allowed uniforms. We were dragged in on Wednesdays after school and on Sunday after Mass for catechism, when they would try to convert the godless heathen Irish kids, or at least hope that we could be taught to stand upright. Many, many knuckles were bloodied by a nun wielding a three-sided ruler. The offense? Daring to touch something in the parochial kid’s desk that you were sitting at. I once studied the wrong catechism lesson, and was made to not just stand outside the classroom, but out of the school altogether in the parking lot. My mom was extremely pissed, but couldn’t even vaguely intimidate the nuns. I thought that was pretty amazing because she tore up the public school teachers on a regular basis. And we always thought that they liked you guys. Amazing how you can carry that stuff around for decades, eh?
yeah, those of us on the inside (the ones with the frickin school-clothes that you public school kids never had to wear) like the fact that you poor kids had to do the Wednesday afternoon cathecism thing, we alsways got out early that day.
Not just that we felt bad for any kids who had to go back into a school building, after the school day ended but we also were told that it was all for show anyway…you know…”Class, the public school children will be coming in today, be sure not to tell them that they are all going to burn in hell when they die, anyway. Lets just keep that to our selves”.
Hey, AKH! I have a scottian associate at work who read these Comments…her contribution: that as punishment for not behavin like a good catholic school girl should, the nuns would make her be the one who had to clean up when someone puked! (Which considering the time and setting that we are discussing) was a fairly regular job. She does remember the green saw dust shit that was always the clean-up material of choice. (Long corridors of shiny green and black tile offset by short trails of sawdust, all headed in vain towards the bathrooms…)
Even though I am running late this morning, took a quick turn here and can’t resist my own “nun story”.
4th grade penmanship class. That’s correct. In the old days students weret taught the proper way to write. They called it “cursive”. (kids have it easy now – look at the picture and push the screen icon. can you spell “hamburger, no pickles”?)
(At this moment, Sister “C” is sitting in a rocker reminiscing over the last 175 years. Wait a minute! No, she isn’t, because back when I was in 4th grade she was already 125!)
Anyway, quiet spring day learning cursive. What’s that noise? Seems Donald B keeps whispering to his buddy. While the class looks on, Sister C quietly walks over to Donald B’s desk (while his back is turned, mind you) and waits for him to turn around and notice her. Once he does, we all hear a few semi-loud recriminating words and then watch in utter horror (and amazement) while this 125 year old, 100lb nun (wearing glasses) takes one hand and completely upturns Donald B’s desk.
Whoo-wee! It was loud, it was scary…. it was parochial.
A clark on steroids? A scott in a bad mood? A roger with not enough attention paid to her?
…….