Early reader

When I was very small, probably around three, my mother went back to teaching. We lived in Newcastle Creek, in the Grand Lake area of New Brunswick and she taught in a small school in Rothwell, between Newcastle Creek and Minto. There was no daycare in those days and she probably didn't want to leave me with someone else anyway – so she took me to school with her.

We travelled to the school on a smelly old bus. I think it's understandable that my memories might be vague – I was pretty young, after all – but there are times I get a whiff of almost sickening fumes, maybe in a garage or a body shop, and I can imagine my mother and me back in that rickety old bus.

Our bus ride took us through the heart of the strip mining landscape that was the Avon Coal Company. Strip mining is not pretty. This isn't the Avon but it's a pretty good illustration of what strip mining looks like:

The school probably had three rooms – grades one, two and three. Mum taught grade two. I don't really remember the children in the class except for one girl named Star. How are you going to forget a girl named Star? She's memorable because of her name but also because she took care of me. My mother couldn't always deal with my needs so it was Star who supervised me at recess and lunch-time and who took me to the bathroom when necessary.

I think that must have been a challenge, particularly in the winter, because this school had an outdoor toilet, down at the back of the schoolyard. I don't remember how it all happened but I'm assuming that I must have been dressed in a snow-suit and boots and mittens. All that would have to be put on in the cloakroom, taken off after the walk through the snow to the outdoor facility, put back on for the walk back to the school, taken off for the rest of the classroom day.

For Star's sake, I hope this didn't happen too many times a day.

In what I have since come to think of as a very privileged placement, I was seated at a small desk at the front of the class, right beside the big teacher's desk. I don't know for sure what I did all day – I suppose I drew pictures and coloured and looked at books. I do know that at one point, my mother had to tell me firmly that I must not answer any more questions that she put to the class. I must be very quiet and let the grade two students answer.

Toward the end of that year, she noticed me one day holding a book, moving my eyes across the page, turning the page at appropriate times. She thought it was very cute, how I was pretending to read. When I asked for her help with a certain word, she obliged and then asked me if knew the other words. I assured her that I did and proceeded to read the page to her, stopping only on certain words that I couldn't quite figure out.

I was not yet four but from that point on, I read everything I could get my hands on.

At that age, my favourite books were The Bobbsey Twins series. This is the edition I remember best:

By the time I started grade one at the White School in Chatham, I had read many of the books in the series. The grade one teacher (and school principal), Mrs. Dorothy Gilliss, recognized early that my reading skills were quite advanced and she tested me and found I was reading at a grade six level.

Many years later, she told me she had been convinced I was reading at a higher level than grade six but that was as high as her books went. Mrs. Gilliss gave me a little assignment of going up front and reading to the class every Friday afternoon, which I enjoyed. She also put me into grade two in the mornings, grade one in the afternoons and after my first year at the White School, I went into grade three.

Now remember, I, in effect, started school at the age of three. And I'm telling this story not to preen about how smart I am. I believe that all kids are smart. I was talking to a friend from Belgium and I asked her when her two small children would go to school. Where she lives, children may go to school at two; they must go at three. That seems just about right to me.

I'm still surprised at the hostility this view is met with.

I'm a long-time admirer of the late Dr. Fraser Mustard, the pioneer in early childhood education. I tried to find a nice concise summary of his life's work but I didn't find anything suitable. If you Google Dr. Mustard, you'll find innumerable articles and studies that support his theories on early childhood. Meanwhile, there's a lot of information about the value of early childhood development right here.