Brontosaurus, stegosaurus or

something else? Of course I have heard of T-Rex and diplodocus and and triceratops.  I know they are all dinosaurs of one sort or another. I have vague ideas about how big some of them were and what they ate.

I also know of the existence of Downunder's very own "muttaburrasaurus" but it has to be said that I know less about dinosaurs than the two small boys across the street - and many other children.

We were discussing this in the library on Saturday afternoon. My generation cannot remember learning about dinosaurs at school. I am sure it is something I would remember but I am quite certain I never had as much as a single lesson about dinosaurs. I can remember "Nature Science" with the wilting and dead flowers and weeds, the snails and the ants and the worms and lessons about the weather. On the whole it bored me. I knew about snails. The Senior Cat removed them from the vegetable patch. I knew about ants. You stayed away from the big ants or they could give you a nasty bite. I knew about worms. The Senior Cat had shown me worms in the garden and explained how useful they were. As for wilting plants, you watered them.  I had grown my own wheat seeds on cotton wool long before I did it again in school. I had even grown my own flowers thank you very much.

But dinosaurs? I can't remember them. I might have been interested I suppose. It would have depended on how I had come across them and how much I was allowed to know. That was one of the problems with school. They stopped me from learning things. The teacher would often stop just when it was starting to get interesting. I was constantly being told not to ask any more questions. 

My teachers were often impatient with me. They didn't have time for questions. We would be on to the next bite of information or a complete change of subject.  If I asked the Senior Cat he would get another library book so I could find out for myself. All too often though the moment had passed. I was hurled into the next arithmetic problem or spelling list. And how many times did I ask for a word in my "daily sentence diary" and have the teacher sigh? I remember asking for "uninhabited" one day and being told to work it out for myself. I used two "t's" because that was how it sounded to me. Did I know what it meant? Yes, I did. I wanted "circular" ("use round") and "enormous" ("use very big") and many more. I would stamp my foot in frustration. It was the Senior Cat's father who showed me how to use a dictionary. Wheeeeeeeee!!!!!! I loved the dictionary. When the teacher wrote down my daily sentence I told her how to spell the words I wanted to use.

Perhaps if I had been learning about dinosaurs I would have been told how to spell their names? Some of my adult friends don't know about the muttaburrasaurus. I can spell that. I just need to know more about them.