Originally printed on June 9, 2003 in the Victoria Advocate (Victoria, TX)
by Ann Rundle
RUNGE - Hilda E. Tamez Schryver is a woman who wears many hats.
Hilda E. Tamez Schryver and her mother, Herminia "Minnie" Tamez, look over the children's book Schryver has written to teach kids about respect and manners.
There's one covered with daisies and another covered with fruit that she calls her Carmen Miranda. There's also one with a knife, fork and spoon protruding from it, and still another with Saturn, the sun, the moon and a star.
She calls that one her space hat, and she wears it when she dresses like Ms. Hilda and meets and greets children. Ms. Hilda is a character in a book Schryver, who grew up in Runge and is now living in Missouri, has written to teach children respect and manners.
The book came out about a year ago, and, as a result, Schryver dresses as Ms. Hilda and visits children 2 ½ years old through the fourth grade in the St. Louis area.
Ms. Hilda wears a long red dress with a white collar, a necklace, Earth earrings and, according to Schryver, "goofy" glasses and "goofy" shoes.
And in the book, "Ms. Hilda's Adventure into the World of Manners," she wears a different hat depending upon which topic - sharing, table manners, interrupting, whining, hitting, pushing, taking turns and respect - is discussed.
On the pages, talking about sharing for instance, Ms. Hilda has on a hat with daisies. The pages show a boy and girl in a sandbox. They are fighting over who gets to play with the "world" which is a character named Mundito, which means "loving little world" in Spanish.
"See, there's a little daisy hat on there because they're outside in springtime," Schryver said. "And the reason why I did it is so that they can remember the daisy hat goes with sharing."
And the hat with the knife, fork and spoon can be found on the pages talking about table manners, and the hat with the fruit can be found on the pages talking about whining. On those pages, the children are in a grocery store with their dad and whining because he won't let them buy any candy.
Two pages are devoted to each behavior, with one page showing the wrong way to act, and the other showing the right way.
On the pages talking about improper table manners, one child is throwing food, while another is eating with her hands. On the other page, the two children are sitting down and eating with forks and spoons.
Under the illustration showing the wrong way to act, it says "you're not supposed to throw food! Oh … you're chewing with your mouth open." And under the illustration showing the right way to behave at the table, it says "I am proud of you when you use good manners."
Along the side of the page Mundito appears with a smile. "Good, no elbows on the table," "thanks for not throwing food," and "thanks for sitting down," are some of the comments he makes.
In the English-Spanish version of the book, the words all appear in Spanish, too,
Schryver, who trains adults in the workplace in such areas as telephone etiquette and customer service, got the idea for the children's book from her customers.
She said they had been telling her for years that workers coming into the workplace had a lack of respect and a lack of work ethic.
"I didn't pay attention to them, and then I started to see a change in my seminars and the people that were attending. I started to see that the individuals were not as successful. For example, if they got a job, and if they didn't like the job, they would leave it within a minute, and they would go find another job even if it only paid a nickel more an hour," Schryver said. "And then I started to see my nieces and nephews and the way they behaved, and other children and the way they behaved. And so then I thought 'well, they are going to grow up to be adult and some day these adults may be in my seminars.'"
That's when she began taking notes for a children's book.
"I really don't think parents anymore take the time to teach their kids about work ethic and respect and respecting others," Schryver said, noting that not all children have bad manners. "I can't say that, because that would be stereotyping. But I just think parents put their kids in front of the TV too much or computer games.
"I think that good manners learned through early childhood, I really believe, has a big impact later on in their lives," she said. "So that's why I wrote the book was because of my customers and then watching how things were changing with the young kids."
For more information about the Schryver's book, visit her Web site at www.mshilda.com.
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