CHILDREN DON'T APPRECIATE HISTORY.

Politics is one of those adult topics that children find difficult to understand. I certainly had no clue about why the death of a certain statesman from England was so important back in 1965. As far as I was concerned, our supervisor forced everyone to watch some boring telecast that replaced our favourite shows.

From my Deliverance From Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School) memoir, here's how I felt about this interruption of my fun.

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So was the funeral which preempted all of my favourite cartoons at the end of January. It was for someone named Winston Churchill. My roommate, Michael Flett, avidly watched the proceedings but I only cared that my cherished television shows were cancelled that day.

While we sat in the Quiet Room, Miss Boyce explained how this leader helped a country called England win the Second World War and how great he was. I could not relate to such abstract and arcane subjects. If it was not a cartoon or children's show, I felt no desire to watch the program. Our supervisor admonished us to sit quietly during the telecast. That added to our frustration with this grown-up show.

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Deliverance from Jericho contains many more vignettes of what life was like in that government-run institution. These range from poignant experiences of homesickness to hilarious incidents of mischief. Click here to read more about this book and to order it. You may also e-mail me directly if the comment form doesn't work.