Having just read "Don't Chew Jesus"...

Before the title to this post gives the impression that I am irreverent (much as that often is perfectly true, though I'm always pious), "Don't Chew Jesus" is a book which was among those I review for Amazon. Some readers may find it highly enjoyable. It is a collection of mostly brief recollections of Catholic school days, from those who, like myself, remember when teaching Sisters wore long habits, had huge classes (...not exclusively populated by innocent little cherubs), were largely secluded from others, and could be strict in a manner which would not be in accord with current political correctness. (Political correctness was not the norm in any school or home in my youth, and I frankly sympathise far more with the nuns than some of the kids I knew!)

I personally found the book disappointing and rather trite (though I'm sure many readers would not agree. I must say that it was very positive, and contained contributions from those grateful for their Catholic education, as I am - this is not a collection of miserable or sweet memories, neither of which would be accurate.) Considering the vast number of contributors, the tales were rather boring and often trite. I could tell any one of you twenty funnier or more insightful tales in half an hour (...brace yourselves, since I just might.)

One observation which surprised me was that most contributors remembered all Sisters as being very old. Then as now, it is true that religious Sisters often continued teaching past the age when other teachers may have retired, but, at least in my experience, even when I was a teenager most of the Sisters who taught me were in their 20s and 30s, and I could count on the fingers of one hand how many, even at university level, were over 50. It was not unusual for those who taught the primary students to be fresh out of novitiate, managing a large class when they themselves were hardly past girlhood. I do remember one retired Sister I knew in childhood, a former Mother General who now ran the small library and assisted children who needed special help with reading - a lovely, brilliant woman with the sort of presence and dignity I wish I could ever hope to have.

The Sisters who taught me as a child were excellent teachers (even if their approaches in spirituality could tend to be a bit on the morbid side.) The Dominicans who provided my later education ranged from super-competent to utterly brilliant, and were a highly delightful group - if RC women could be ordained, I could easily see a few of them occupying Peter's throne. Perhaps I see things a bit differently from those who contributed to the book I mentioned because I had a church career and a continued association with many Religious. (That also may be why I have far more stories I could tell, most of them much funnier. Recollections of childhood can be distorted.... it is only just occurring to me that the 'old' nuns a six year old remembered may have been all of 35...)

Most of the stories in "Don't Chew Jesus" concerned children, not older students. Looking back for a moment, and even allowing for that I have no addiction whatever to children, I think I can appreciate the multiple burdens the Sisters, many new to the classroom, probably many not yet in final vows, were carrying. Teaching is no joy ride in any case, but the semi-cloistered Sisters who provided my early education must have been combining a monastic schedule with this - I think it is likely that the boring tasks such as "write each catechism question five times each" stemmed either from a desperate need to keep young kids quiet or from a Sister's need to recite seven hours of the Office. I would learn, in my brief purgatorial period of teaching children of 10 (...I was lucky... for them it probably was more like hell...), that many parents and those in administration care more about whether a teacher 'controls the class' than whether young minds and creativity are stimulated (...I'll save the bedlam that can result from a lack of structure and encouragement of creativity for another day). Young Sisters, I'm sure, not only had to worry about proving themselves as teachers - determination of their suitability for religious life may have hinged on whether they could keep 50 restless kids, half of them looking for the distractions of mischief, quiet and orderly.

Even the very vaguest sexual references (questions about what "Virgin" meant, or what the feast of Circumcision signified, were in this category - even references to the liturgical calendar could be troublesome) could lead to outrage from the small but highly vocal percentage of parents who thought every last syllable about "marriage" had to come from them. It could be very hard to tell whether a particular pupil, who asked a question about doctrine, moral teaching, or even history, was genuinely interested or looking to create havoc - and the latter could come about very quickly! (Before this seems an exclusively Catholic or extremely modern phenomenon, recall the first scenes in Robert Donat's version of "Good-bye Mister Chips," and the hilarity about references to the Virgin Queen.) I knew Sisters who were taught to respond to questions with "we don't discuss personal cases," but, cop out though that appeared to be, I can see today that they could hardly risk a kid who was either an instigator or excessively holy sort using a response as fuel for a bit of mischief or self righteous sermon.

It occurs to me, as well, that those in administration (who were teachers for decades, and surely had enough stories of unruly days in school of their own) might forget this if a young teacher let the 'bold' kids get out of line. Some children were 'big trouble' and always had been - yet a newcomer who was teaching them could be in trouble for not keeping order, though they'd been 'out of order' for years and everyone knew this.

I'll admit that the book stirred my memories of many incidents of which I had not thought in years. I hope that the authors, should they produce another volume or revise this one, don't keep the anecdotes so very short. There are far funnier, and far more insightful, stories they could collect. (I'm also inclined to think that lots of the incidents I remember, at which the nuns had to act shocked at the time, probably had them rolling with laughter just as much as did I... though I had the good taste not to laugh in class...)