Coincidence - Alan May [32]
Nancy shrieked at the thought. Then she yawned.
“I am so tired now I can hardly stand up!” she said. “How in the world are we going to be able to do all this and go to classes, too?”
Being disturbed in the middle of the night for watch duty, combined with the unaccustomed hard physical labor, not to mention the air, sun, and wind during the day and the sheer newness of the whole experience, was taking its toll on all of the Floaties. They were thankful to have a couple of “lazy” days to nap, write letters home, and soak their aching muscles in the warm sunshine before schoolwork was added to their daily load.
Dave Cameron, on the other hand, could hardly wait for classes to begin. He was elated about starting his first job as a certified teacher, and psyched about the opportunities being on a floating school would open up for learning about social studies and anthropology. He couldn’t imagine a better setup for teaching and learning than the Blue Water Academy program.
Dave, Anika, and the three other teachers, Mary Wilson, Tom Michaels, and Sharon Rock, had met in Los Angeles earlier in the summer for five days of orientation and training. They had spent the time planning the curriculum and discussing, far into the night, their philosophies of education.
Dave, a product of the Ontario school system and a fervent believer in equality of opportunity for all kids, was a firm proponent of public schools. They had served him well, after all, and how in good conscience could he—could anyone—deny that every child, from every income level, was entitled to a good education?
Anika was just as convinced that private schools were the better choice. They only had to look at her if they needed an example, she told them. She would never be where she was—lead teacher and shipboard director for a prestigious educational program—if it hadn’t been for private schools.
Growing up in Saskatchewan, she said, her schooling began in public school and had been in trouble almost from the first day. The class sizes were overwhelming—thirty or more kids in one room, presided over by a harried teacher trying to keep order, never mind accommodating so many levels of skills and experience. Anika had been shy and well behaved so she got virtually no attention. She was afraid of raising her hand in class—afraid of participating much at all. She was bored silly most of the time, with class discussions dragging along at a pace geared for the slower learners. The beleaguered teacher had no time for enrichment activities, or anything that might have sparked the interest of the brighter students.
Anika had coasted along year after year, giving her teachers no problem, but learning very little and becoming more and more disengaged with every semester that passed. Because her teachers kept promoting her, never noticing her much one way or another, her parents had no idea how distressed she was, although they certainly could see that their once cheerful daughter was looking increasingly glum. They chalked it up to adolescence, and assumed the phase would soon pass.
By the time she was ready for high school, Anika was fed up with the whole business, counting the days till she would be old enough to quit school and get on with her life. What exactly that life would be, with no high school diploma and no particular goal in mind, she didn’t know, but surely there had to be something better than wasting endless years of it trapped in a stultifying classroom.
Then, the summer before she was to start grade nine, Susannah moved in next door. Susannah was Anika’s age. She was tiny—not quite five feet tall—and a bundle of animated curiosity about everything around her. They became instant friends.
“You must be upset that you have to get used to a new school now that you’re in a new neighborhood,” Anika said to Susannah one day,
Anika was surprised to hear that Susannah never had to change schools. She had gone to private school from kindergarten on and would continue there right up to college. What’s more,