SCHOOL CHANGED THINGS
Things went smooth for me until the day when I was to
board the big, yellow, bus that would take me to places I had never
experienced. I don’t remember too much about that but my siblings later told me
that I put up an extremely big fight. I refused to take a ride on something
that I feared. Nevertheless, the problem
was solved when mom had to accompany me the first three days of school. Mom
ushered me into the classroom and after I became orientated to the
procedure, someone would give her a ride back to the farm which was 10 miles
away. After the first few days I developed a strong liking for school; in fact,
I liked it so much that from grades 1 through 12, I had a perfect attendance
record.
Mrs. Womack was
my first grade teacher and she was strict. I remember
that she made me sit me in the corner with my nose in a circle because I pulled
the pigtails of the young girl sitting in the desk in front of me. I also
remember the teacher keeping me in at recess and making me write 100 lines that
I would not talk in class. Nevertheless, I soon learned the meaning of
discipline, and my behavior improved. On
the other hand, there were many good times. I remember enjoying counting the
different color beads on the bead rack that sat in front of the classroom. I remember
a proud feeling when I could identify most of the animals in the pictures that
the teacher held up. For a farm boy this was a fairly easy exercise. My
confidence grew and soon school became my passion.
Within a matter of days my playhouse changed. I left
the big farm under the shade trees and set up a make-belief classroom in the
back yard. I fell in love with school and each afternoon I would pretend to be
the teacher and teach the lessons I had learned that day. I built a caulk board
from some scrap lumber, painted it black and stood it behind my teacher’s desk
which was made from fruits carts. The black board was rough and was hard to
erase, but it served the purpose for a mythical classroom.
I don’t remember much about second grade. But I do
remember that my teacher Mrs. Wilder, made us read a lot. We had a second grade
reader that we had to complete. Plus, I remember reading from the Weekly Reader
and enjoying the news articles. News was limited at our home, so an insight
into the world of news was fascinating.
I remember my third grade teacher Mrs. Moss,
threatening to give me a paddling because I exaggerated my Halloween events.
Each student was allowed to tell what we did for Halloween, and I allowed my
imagination to run wild. She knew it and later told me that she recognized my imagination,
but she also knew that it was important for her to impress upon me the value of
being truthful. The threat of the paddling scared me and from then on I was
careful to tell the truth.
My fourth grade teacher was Mrs. Dickerson. Each
student had to stand before the class and recite the multiplication tables. If
we made a mistake she would paddle us in the palm of the hand with a thick ruler.
I had been told that it hurt, so I made sure I learned the multiplication
tables very well.
My fifth grade teacher was Miss Gaskin. She was a
rough lady but a strict disciplinarian. She would use the paddle in a wink of
an eye, and I developed the idea that she enjoyed it. Even though she put the
fear of God in us she also taught us
many new things. In the fifth grade I learned long division.
Each day after lunch Miss Gaskin would read to us. I
was impressed by the story “Strawberry Girl.” For years I remembered parts of
the story. Later in life, I discovered the author Lois Lenski, and reread
Strawberry Girl and many other books she had written. Today, I have several books
written by Lois in my
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