my time in school

Photo: Me age 9 or 10. I think it sums up things pretty well.
School. What was it, for me as a child? What do I remember? I attended both public and home school.

Kindergarten- I remember many children crying on the first day. I recall each child got a week where they were the star and got their body traced on butcher paper to hang in the classroom. I recall having to draw a picture of our hero and I never had a hero as a child but I thought the weather man was cool so I drew him. But then I guess that wasn't the assignment, so I had heard, so I sadly drew a big X across my drawing, to find out no, I was right in the first place. So I decided it was the weatherman building a fence. I also remember having to choose a hand as I was ambidextrous. I chose to write with my left and cut with my right so neither hand would feel left out. I remember a father's day craft where we made toolbelts from paper and had to write what we'd give our daddy. I wrote asparagus. Hey..my dad loved the stuff. I remember being a tomboy.

First- Purple haired teacher. Would say "oh baloney" if I said I couldn't do something. I blew through over a dozen paper journals instead of our allotted one. I got in trouble for talking to my friend and got my own secluded seat at the back of the room. (I talked because I was bored.) I got to go to the upper-grade library for my reading choices. I made a candle and a plate and learned that I didn't like the game "mercy". I got scared when the science movie said the world would blow up, from the sun exploding, in a billion years, as I thought it was much sooner. I sat in the hallway, alone, in trouble, a lot.

Second- I liked my 2nd gr teacher, she was my kinder teacher but she went back to kinder so we got a new teacher. I helped two children- one from Germany- to learn to read. There was a girl I hated who claimed my dad had been to jail and was a bad person. I hated her and the teacher made us sit together and work together for the whole year. She purposely splashed green pain on my brand new shoes. I was the queen of the boggle game. I got teased for wearing glasses.

Third- One of my favorite teachers because she was hard on the "bad" kids and sweet if you were good. I forged an absence note and she caught me. I loved to read Serendipity, and Little House on the Prairie. I sucked at handwriting and multiplication. I recall making solar systems out of styrofoam and looking at snowflakes with a magnifying class, as well as grass and hair. I was absent for over 60 days of the year because although I loved my teacher, I was bored with school. I found staying at home more rewarding and intellectually stimulating. I composed poetry.

Fourth- my teacher taught for two weeks and her husband died atop Mt. Whitney so she quit. We had a new sub every day until we got a permanent teacher who denied bathroom use, would scream at you for missing assignments, and was a general meanie. I had a crush on a boy and was humiliated in front of the class for giving him a "date me" heart candy. I was home-schooled for half the year because I came home from school crying every day. I LOVED home school and finally could do work at my level. I attended public school again for the last few weeks of school to "acclimate". All we did was color in those color-by-number math problem things...loots of "division dinosaurs". My work group made fart jokes and copied off my division dino. Our teacher gave us cubbie post boxes and provided post cards to exchange. This fostered my still going postcard collection of cards from every country and I still have one of my first cards from 4th grade!

...to be continued...