First Grade

I had two first grade teachers. The first one, Mrs. R.,  was simply appalled that I was not my sister. My sister, who is among the funnier people I know when she talks, describes herself as terrified to talk in class. There she sat, day after day, among the smartest kids, always getting her homework done on time and generally doing her best to not be noticed. She's the kind of student who really gave a teacher a break.

I was not that kid.

As I remember it, Mrs. R. would come out to lean into my mom's car on a near daily basis to let her know what egregious crime I had committed in class that day. It got old for me really fast. And it didn't make me change my mind about the merits of talking in class. It even got old for my mom. One day, my mother instructed me to hurry up to the car after school as fast as I could so that Mrs. R. couldn't talk to her in the carpool line. Rather than dilly-dallying, as I was prone to do, I was to beat Mrs. R. by such a margin that my mom could peal out of the pick-up area before being noticed by the evil Mrs. R.

I love my mom for that. She somehow recognized that nothing was going to change. And she could either listen to Mrs. R. complain daily, or she could avoid her.

I really did not enjoy my first few months of first grade. But then, glory of all glories, Mrs. R's husband got transferred and I got a new teacher. Mrs. P. was, by far, the best elementary school teacher I had. She adored the challenging kids in class, which means she adored me. And I adored her. I was thrilled not to be compared to my sister. Here was someone who didn't even know my sister!

Mrs. P. taught me a lot of important lessons. And she really pushed me and my friends. Each week, she would send about six of us who were pretty good at spelling to the library with big words - ones with 10 letters in them! These were glorious words that were completely foreign to us. After receiving our words for the week, we would each paw through the giant dictionary guarded by the librarian and record the meanings of these incredible words. Then, we would return back to class and when it came time for the weekly spelling test, we'd be tested on these words instead of the regular first grade spelling words. I still remember learning the word exaggerate.

I was so proud of knowing that word. I was so confident that this unique word was known only by myself, Mrs. P., and the others in my spelling group, that I decided to go home and impress my parents. I looked right at my dad during dinner and casually queried "Dad, do you EXAGGERATE?". (And yes, I'm sure I said it in ALL CAPS because this was the money word, and I was on the brink of proving my brilliance to all of humankind - or at least my family.) And my dad responded "yes". And I was filled with glee because my dad  had just admitted that he exaggerated. Clearly, he did not know what the word meant. Because in my first grade mind, I had decided that exaggerating was a very bad thing to do. It was much later in life that I learned to blog. So, I savored his response for about half a moment, and then I decided that I needed to really, really nail him, making clear my eventual plan to dominate the world with my smarts. So my eyes bugged out of my head as I tried to maintain my cool and I asked "YOU DO?!? YOU EXAGGERATE?". And my dad, who apparently had a vocabulary that was as good as mine responded, cool as a cucumber, "yes, about how great my children are. I do it all the time".

Game. Set. Match.

To say I was crushed would be an understatement. Here I am, after all, more than three full decades after this moment occurred and I remember it like it was yesterday. I realized then that world domination might elude me for a bit longer than I had initially suspected.

Learning that I should assume others know as much as me - especially others who were my parents - was but one of the many important lessons Mrs. P. would teach me over the year. She also reinforced for me that controlled chaos can be a beautiful thing, that the world is huge - and she did her best to expose me to it, and that a sophisticated Texas accent is enthralling. I was mesmerized from her first "howdy, y'all'.

I carry a little piece of Mrs. P. with me to this day. I still think about all the fun I had in that class. I think about how my friend learned to read from dinosaur books because he thought the traditional reader was stupid. I think about the time that so few children showed up for class, Mrs. P. actually took us to her house to bake cookies. Seriously. We all piled into her VW bug (kids could sit in the front seat in those days - and seat belts and car seats were either nonexistent, or nobody bothered to use them) and she took off with us for the day. Can you even imagine that happening today? I remember that I used to take a nap at my desk often, and Mrs. P. didn't seem to mind. One of the other kids would wake me if the class was leaving the room, and Mrs. P. would always, always, always give me a hug and let me know that it was hard for her to wake up sometimes, too. I remember being so sad when I was in 6th grade and found out she was moving back to her beloved Texas. I cried and cried on her last day. I even remember the little thumbprint Christmas ornament that we made for our parents that year. She had each of us make a thumbprint, and then she turned it into an animal. Mine was a mouse with a little tail. I thought she was the most gifted artist in the world. A thumbprint - into a mouse? Who could be that creative?

Today, Connor began first grade. I'm pretty confident Mrs. H. is closer to Mrs. P. than Mrs. R. For his sake, I sure hope I'm right. I know firsthand that first grade can be a complete dud, or a completely magical year. Mrs. P. definitely turned on my love of learning. Please, Mrs. H., give it your all! You've got a great student in front of you.

Elaine