Cloud picturing.
Years ago when I was starting school, after our beginning lessons, we were sent into the play yard for our break period.
Our teacher, Mrs. Beresford, always encouraged us to look at the clouds in the sky, and to tell her all of the things the different shapes and movements suggested to us.
We found chariots, sailing ships caught in violent storms, clouds pushing and shoving each other and faces of people we had never met or didn’t want to meet.
Mrs. Beresford would listen to our descriptions of the things we had seen.
She would smile and say that our imagination would direct us in our adult life and if we ignored it we would be directed by other people.
We did not understand this at all, but Mrs. Beresford was a person all the children listened to and nodded their heads in agreement.
Mrs. Beresford always had a large cane rod leaning against the wall, to the right of the blackboard. She was very skilled at the application of this cane for any infringement of class discipline
It is a fond memory, of the school bullies whimpering before and after this applied discipline, and Mrs. Beresford giving them an extra two whacks for the whimpering behaviour.
Mrs. Beresford was harsh but a fair and a great teacher. We are still grateful for the teaching effort she made and the many life lessons she taught us all.
I still do the cloud picturing she had us all so diligently do, but my adult picturing has slackened off from the imaginational abundance of my youth.
However, I had better increase my output, yesterday I thought I saw Mrs. Beresford hiding behind one of the clouds with what looked like a large cane rod.
