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Hello, my name is Andreea, and I am a volunteer in the MyStory project.
She used to be a schoolmistress and you can still distinguish in her eyes the passion that filled her whole career.
Let us watch together the story of Miss Elena Cucu.
I’m a schoolmistress, I was born in a pretty village … but now it’s changed almost beyond recognition …
so many people went abroad and built houses over there …
Being a teacher was a great comfort, it allows you to get close to the child’s soul
and the child gets close to your soul …
nothing can be achieved unless you get close, nothing at all
Lots of hard work in primary 1, you have to make the child understand what’s expected of him,
which is not … once a pen was lost … and all the kids started looking for it,
rummaging through the desks, nowhere to be found …
until one of them glanced at me and I could immediately tell the pen was right there, under that very desk …
I have never flared up at a child … we have a talk face to face, listen,
if you don’t behave the whole class will know … the whole school will know,
and that’s how they never do it again … because getting close to a child is the greatest thing
… until primary 4 … you can have almost anything this way .
I loved it all so much … and I had so many inspectors visiting over the years …
poor me, the education in those villages where I used to teach …
this was the time when everybody studied Russian history, and I felt an extraordinary … for Russia …
How many generations have you taught?
I can’t remember, my dear … but I do know I have taught children all my life …
for instance, the times when we studied Eminescu, it was really great studying Eminescu
And now, with mass education, always living in fear of losing your job if you don’t do this and do that …
What kind of activities did you have with the children? 0:03:05.261,1193:02:47.295 What have you prepared? Well, I prepared the subject … really? yes! And which is the subject? ... so and so … you don’t say!
All kinds, educational activities, all kinds … there’s no other way …
Ah, once I was taking an exam and I knew the question very well … everybody in class,
all my colleagues murmured approvingly and the examiner wanted to know why … well, it was very touching and all …
For example, I used to tell children, this is what Calinescu writes at the end of his books,
this is what he says about Eminescu: “brooks will dry up, forest or fortress will cover his burial place,
stars will fade out in faraway skies before this realm pulls together its seep and brings
it up in the slim stem of another lily smelling as sweet.”
One of my pupils in high school quoted this excerpt for an
exam and that was more than enough … later he came to thank me.
Have you ever met former pupils?
Yes, of course, quite many … we used to go on trips
together all over the country, not an easy thing in those days …
We went on a trip to the monasteries in Moldavia with the collective laborers, oh dear,
nobody did that sort of thing then, and I was very happy and it gave me great pleasure …
we went all the way to Bicaz Gorges and looked at the mountains on both sides …
What are the memories you most cherish from those days?
Well, my son is a fine young man …