School Days

Boy, you can tell school’s out when I post three times in one day. I’ve not had so much “free” time in I don’t know when.

The Reflective Teacher wrote about his exploits during his school days. If I have one observation to make about my school days, I’d have to say it was that I was too good. I had one detention the entire time I was in school from grades K-12, and I got it for not turning in a form on time. My teacher gave those of us who were in her detention (I think there were three of us) mocha almond fudge ice cream; it was the first time I had tried it, and it’s still a favorite.

I knew very well where “the line” was, and I never went anywhere near it. I got fussed at for talking to Leon when I was supposed to be working quietly in first grade. I wanted to disappear into a hole; I was so mortified. On rainy days in 5th grade, we went to our classroom after lunch and were allowed to draw or play games. I asked Mrs. Esquibel if I could go play with the puppets behind the puppet show. She said no. But Talisa Carmichael, that damned siren, she talked me into doing it anyway; she swore we wouldn’t get caught. Well, we did, and boy, was Mrs. Esquibel mad. She told my parents at a parent/teacher conference. I can’t think that I ever got into more serious trouble than that.

I did some dumb things, like try alcohol (on school premises, to boot), but I never tried drugs either; not even when the hulking guy who sat behind me in economics offered me a joint.

I guess I was a bit like Hermione Granger, only instead of jumping to answer every question, I shrank into my chair. If the Reflective Teacher has more sympathy and understanding for kids like him, I suppose I have learned to watch out for those shrinking violets.

2 thoughts on “School Days”

  1. Oh, I knew where the line was drawn. That's why I never pushed it when people were looking. 🙂

    Those shrinking violets are in my classroom, too. I tried all year to find a way to get them to open up, to get them to raise their hands, to get them to do something other than smile and turn in excellent work.

    I did everything I could to pepper their papers with commentary and suggestions to spice up their writing, and at the end of the year, only one of them opened up — but I'll assume she only did so because the classroom was too simple for her and she eased into complacency instead of pushing herself.

    It's students like that who make me angry that a school can make room for GT and advanced mathematics, but not for advanced Science or Language Arts — had I the chance to teach an advanced Language Arts course, I think those students could experience reading and writing in a way even they didn't expect to encounter in 8th grade.

    Anyway, thanks for an insight into you. It's interesting to think about teachers as students, and how they behaved when they were in the classroom. We're all teachers now, but who were we as students?

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