American Women's Club of Hamburg Currents Magazine January 2014 | Page 8

FEATURE

An I nter view with M ia
by Jenny M.

Mia started half day
nursery school in
London when she
was three years and
two months old.
Interviewer: What
happens when you
first get to school?
Mia: Mrs. Slater
helps me hang up
my coat. There’s a
photo of me above
my peg so I don’t get
muddled up. Then
she tells us stories
and Sonia helps us wash our hands. I like the toilets,
they are yellow and teeny tiny.
Interviewer: Do you work hard at school?
Mia: Ooh yes, we have Circus Skills and Dressing
up Time. I like to wear a tararra and play princesses.
Next week we are having Chunky Fairy Day and I’m
taking my fairy wings what Aunt Kate gave me for
my birthday. (Mia’s mummy: It says Funky Fairy Day
in the weekly update.)
Interviewer: What else do you do?
Mia: We do story time and circle time and writing
and painting. I can write my name but Georgina
can`t. Sonia helps us wash the paint pots and we have
tidy up time too.
Interviewer: What was for lunch today?
Mia: We had roast chicken and horrid orange stuff
and roast potatoes. Carole’s roast potatoes are better
than mummy’s.
Interviewer: Horrid orange stuff! Do you mean
carrots?

Mia: No, it wasn’t carrots, I like carrots and everybody
said it was horrid. (Mia’s mummy: I checked on-line
and it was actually sweet potato cubes. Just about
everything cook Carole makes seems to be better than
mine.)
Interviewer: Have you been on a school trip?
Mia: We went to the aquarium but we didn’t see any
mermaids. Mrs. Slater told us they were sleeping
behind the rocks. Everybody was disappointed but I
think I saw one swimming about by the seaweed.
Interviewer: Any other trips?
Mia: We went to the Conservation Area and Mrs.
Slater read us “We are going on a Bear Hunt” and we
had to swish through the grass, but we didn’t see any
bears. The best thing was going on the school bus and
Carole made us sandwiches. I sat beside Pellellope.
Interviewer: You sat beside Penelope?
Mia: Yes, I like Pellellope and Mrs. Slater put her next
to me on the bus.
Interviewer: You must have nice friends at school.
Mia: I play with Leni and Grace and Ava and Betty.
Then the big girls help us with lunch and they take us
to the library.
Interviewer: What happens when school is finished?
Mia: Sonia helps me choose a book and puts it in my
school bag and I read it with my mummy and daddy.
Mrs. Slater takes me to my mummy outside and
then I have lots of slides in the playground. (Mia’s
mummy: Mia has to be lured away from the slide and
is usually the last to leave.)
Interviewer: School sounds like fun.
Mia: I like my school and I like Sonia and I like Mrs.
Slater and I like Carole and I like my friends.

Teaching Ain’t What I t Used To B e
by Marinell H.

But then neither is parenting. For myself, after a
year of kindergarten with the divine Miss White,
I attended parochial grade school, then high
school, taught primarily by Benedictine nuns,
many of whom I f