Doing DÕNealian; Kline, Sonia Transcript

[Cat Stevens Ð Remember the Days of the Old Schoolyard plays].

>>KLINE: I remember that whole thing of copying for hours - picking out words that I had spelled incorrectly, illuminating that letter and decorating, but it was all really about copying. This is a very traditional environment with the desk, the board, the chalk, and thatÕs a very strong image that I have of my elementary school Ð the chalkboard and the teacher handwriting on the chalkboard and the students copying into a book and I just remember the tedium of that.

That just reminded me, I had this experience when I first started teaching in New York, and I just remember [laughing] I cried on my first day, and itÕs kind of ridiculous. The principal at the school basically came in and said, ÒWell, you have to write on the board in a certain type of handwriting here. You have to use DÕNealian handwriting.Ó And I didnÕt know how to use DÕNealian handwriting. And she was like, ÒWell, you know, you have to model for the students DÕNealian handwriting, so you canÕt just write on the board.Ó And I remember on the first day literally having this DÕNealian book. IÕm thirty years old and I have this DÕNealian handwriting book and IÕm trying to copy the schedule onto the board in DÕNealian and itÕs taking me forever. ItÕs just painful.

And I cried and then I just laughed at myself and I was like, ÒYou know what, if this isnÕt going to work and if this is that important at this school IÕm not going to work here.Ó And actually what I did was I spoke to the computer guy and I got DÕNealian handwriting put on my computer so I could type things up and stick them on the walls in DÕNealian handwriting, but then the rest of my handwriting I did in my handwriting and I told the kids, ÒYou know what? We donÕt all write the same way.Ó

[Cat Stevens Ð Remember the Days of the Old Schoolyard plays then fades slowly].