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A Little Background on the Artist known formally as Aqui.* |
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NAME: Aquillae Diquitus RESIDENCE: PA. USA Interested in something about my background in writing? How touching. The earliest influence on my writing would have to be my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Lopez. In fact I don’t think it would be over stating the point if I said that without her intervention I probably would never have turned to writing as a career. To understand the true impact her style of teaching had on my life one must first know what type of teaching I was subject to before the fifth grade. Yes, I came from a Catholic school. |
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And yes, at the time I was in grade school (the early 70’s to
early 80’s) almost all of the classes where taught by NUNS. We had our mix at
my school. There were the ‘Michael row the boat ashore’ type free-thinking
nuns (First grade and Seventh). And then there were the Sister Mary
Discipline’s (Second grade). And of course the Sisters so old they were
probably at the last supper. (Third, Fourth, and Eighth grades) Fifth and sixth
grades were not taught by nuns.
The nun who taught Fourth grade, perhaps since the founding of the school back in the 20’s, was Sister Ancilla. To say she was very old when I had her as a teacher is being kind. She was slightly hard of hearing. This allowed the kids in her class to get away with almost anything so long as they remembered to keep their voices down. This worked out great for spelling bee’s, quizzes, and tests. As with any typical youngster and school work, I tried to avoid it as much as possible. Then, as I’m sure is still the practice in most play grounds, I would gather with the rest of my classmates before school started and copy the work from someone else. My parents were a bit confused when the first quarter report cards were sent out. I had a C+ in spelling. Pretty good for someone who had to go through a terribly embarrassing time when it was his turn to read out loud in class. Quite frankly, my reading skills were pathetic. My spelling and phonics were even worse. So my parents went off to teacher - parent night at the school to discuss the situation. They asked my teacher why I was getting good marks when I had trouble reading and spelling. Her reply? (This is really what she said) "He is such a good, quiet boy and doesn’t cause trouble in class." That was her reason for giving me a passing grade! All of that would change however with my graduation into the fifth grade. The first thing different about Mrs. Lopez was that she wasn’t a nun. (This was the first class I ever had without a nun teaching.) Secondly, she was young. (More of our mother’s age then of our grandmother’s age, as was common with the nuns.) Thirdly, and most importantly, she was very progressive in her style of education for her time. (At least for around the area I lived.) Unlike the nuns, she made it a point to make certain that ALL the parents got involved with their child’s education. This ranged from the simple act of letting the parents known what the homework was for that night, to encouraging those who had the free time to volunteer to help in the class room. And of course, my mother was very willing to volunteer her time. I guess in retrospect I should be thankful that she cared so much about my education to spend her free time trying to help me and the other kids in my class. But when your ten years old, it’s pretty uncool to have your mom in the classroom. For one thing, it’s a lot harder to goof off. Early on in the school year, Mrs. Lopez realized my reluctance to reading of any kind was connected to my problems in spelling and phonics. Her solution to the problem? COMIC BOOKS!! As she put it, reading anything, even comic books, is better than reading nothing. And if I was told to read something I liked, I would be more inclined to continue reading. I wasn’t just left to read them on my own. Oh no, that would be to simple for Mrs. Lopez. And besides, I could easily cheat and only follow the pictures when I hit words I couldn’t read. I had to read a comic book every night to one of my parents. It wasn’t all comics and fun though. I had to work like hell on my phonics and spelling skills that whole year to make up for four years of nuns. Later on in life other teachers would have varying degrees of effect on my life and my drive towards writing as a career. But of all of them, Mrs. Lopez had the greatest effect of all. She showed me that reading could be fun as well as educational. Also, I believe, I gained a great deal of story telling skills reading all of those comics. Aquillae *Aqui is the shortened version of my pen name coined by Katie McN. |
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Copyright 2001 by Aquillae |
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