Elementary school brings a lot of pictures to my mind, the first of which is the blanket I slept on in kindergarten. I am not sure of the color, exactly, but a red and white checker pattern comes to mind. I liked kindergarten, it was fun and my teacher Mrs. Beeton was nice. I remember that we had graham crackers and milk for our snack. I also remember that it was not enough. They say that everything you need to know you learned in kindergarten and that may be true. Either that or I am a slow learner. What I took away from kindergarten was that you can’t leave your graham cracker in the milk too long or you will never get it back. I think that is pretty deep, actually.Mrs. Ainscough was my first grade teacher. Nice enough person, I suppose. She was distracted as she got married in the middle of the year. What did I learn that year? Nothing of import obviously, because my memories end with Mrs. Ainscough’s wedding.
The only picture that is in my brain from second grade is my math workbook in the trash on the last day of school. Mrs. Nielson, my teacher threw it in there. What did I take away? Ultimately that criticizing is the worst thing you can do to a child. It makes them feel stupid and they start to believe that nothing is possible for them. I never wanted that for my children, though I am sure I slipped a few times.
Third grade was Mrs. Hayes. She was wonderful and even liked me, I thought. She made me feel I could actually accomplish something. I always got good grades in her class. The picture I have in my head is of her, with her brown hair up in a bun, smiling down at me. The key lesson from third grade is that Mrs. Nielson was wrong. I can amount to something.
Fourth grade was not happy because my teacher was not happy. I don’t remember her name which is sad. Where is the lesson here? If you are unhappy, no one else around you will be either and you will wind up a spinster 4th grade teacher, unhappy in your surroundings.
Fifth grade is fuzzy in my mind now. The only picture I have in my head actually has a soundtrack. Frank Valli and the Four Seasons singing while we all tried out dancing with the opposite sex for the first time. Actually, it’s more than a picture, it’s a movie shot. A medium high dolly down with a left to right pan. What is that, you say? Well, the camera would move in this path:
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The the setting is a playground with the school in the background and a forest of tether ball poles, around which children swayed awkwardly for a few moments and then fled, too embarrassed for words. My best friend Diane left me to be friends with another girl. She was lured away because boys were just so, weird. The lesson here? Well, you can never trust a girl of course! I now understand Harold Hill in the Music Man. The sadder but wiser girl for me......
Sixth grade, now that was a time. Mr. Berg was my first male teacher. He had blonde hair combed back in an enormous pompadour. He would brush his teeth noisily in the sink at the back of the room every morning. I mean, that was the sink we cleaned our water colors in! Yuck. He sent me to resource for not living up to my potential. I was bored and reading Scientific American under the desk. I asked for a subscription when I turned 12. He actually did me a favor by sending me out. Resource was fun and we got to play with musical instruments in the multi-purpose room for a couple of hours. I tried my hand at the clarinet and could get a good sound out of it right away. Just had to learn the fingering which was not as much fun but OK. I quit for a stupid reason, the clarinet was NOT a rock and roll instrument and I wanted to play rock and roll. I mean Benny Goodman played the clarinet! I called it honey dripper music. Little did I know that Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin would form a group called the Honey Drippers and record two best selling albums of old swing tunes. They even used clarinets! What did I learn here? Stupid is sometimes smart and what’s cool now may not be in the future.
I was a stranger in a strange land through most of elementary. There was only one other boy taller than me and he was much more popular. No one read science fiction but me and my friend Reed. I was good at tether ball and four square, but lousy at baseball. Girls were ever a mystery, teachers even more unfathomable, pickles tasted better when you skipped school to go home and eat them and nothing beats a crystal rocket radio in your hideout made of weeds next to the fence.
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