{"id":1212,"date":"2017-01-31T15:57:10","date_gmt":"2017-01-31T02:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=1212"},"modified":"2017-09-18T14:55:25","modified_gmt":"2017-09-18T02:55:25","slug":"morning-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=1212","title":{"rendered":"Morning Talks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?attachment_id=1211\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1211\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1211\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Bang-300x298.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"298\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Bang-300x298.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Bang-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Bang.jpg 302w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>One of my memories of primary school was the start-the-week ritual known as \u2018the morning talk\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>I assume that the objective of the morning talk was to help build social confidence among the five, six, and seven-year-olds \u2013 a sort of Toastmasters for pipsqueaks.<\/p>\n<p>I seem to recall that many of the morning talks were rambling accounts of nothingness.\u00a0 \u2018Good morning, class.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a totally unfocused account of some of the not-very-interesting things that I did over the weekend.\u2019\u00a0 But two talks, in particular, I recall as accounts of great concision.<\/p>\n<p>The first was a talk given by six-year-old Anthony, a scruffy fellow, even by our rather relaxed immediate post-war rural standards.<\/p>\n<p>Reporting on his family\u2019s November Fifth celebrations, Anthony raced to the front of the class and announced: \u2018Me had a Jumping Jack; me let it off; and it jumped on me yud.\u2019 And then, satisfied with his ten seconds in the spotlight, he returned to his seat.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018<em>I<\/em>, Anthony.\u00a0 <em>I<\/em> had a Jumping Jack,\u2019 the teacher suggested.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018No, <em>me<\/em>, Miss.\u00a0 You wasn\u2019t there.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>The other was an account of Christopher\u2019s experience at a birthday party.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I was at the birthday party,\u2019 Christopher said.\u00a0 \u2018I got sweet with Elizabeth.\u00a0 And she thumped me.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t \u2018alf \u2018urt.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018And what did you learn, Christopher?\u2019 our teacher asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I learned that you can\u2019t never tell with girls, Miss.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Ah, yes, we all knew what we knew back in those dim distant days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of my memories of primary school was the start-the-week ritual known as \u2018the morning talk\u2019. I assume that the objective of the morning talk was to help build social confidence among the five, six, and seven-year-olds \u2013 a sort &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=1212\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1212"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1237,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212\/revisions\/1237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}