Tales of a First Grade Something

My boys love hearing my story about the time a mean first grade teacher played a really lousy trick on me. But for the first seven months of first grade I had a really kind teacher and they've heard these stories too:

• We practiced spelling words in small groups with the teacher showing us words on flashcards. If you didn't know a word she wrote it with a marker on a strip of paper. We'd stand in line at the end of the day and show each other how many words we had missed. I never had any. One day in our group she held up the word "something". I shook my head repeatedly to say I didn't know the word. That day I stood in line showing the others my strip of paper with my word.
• The cutest boy was James. I wanted his attention. But he liked a girl who wore a color coordinated Little Kiddle (the doll that was worn on a necklace).
• A goofy but sweet boy named Joey liked me. One day when I entered the classroom 3 girls ran over to me to tell me that I was the only girl invited to Joey's birthday party. Sure enough there was an envelope on my desk. I had fun at the party at his house.

I'm so glad I have the class picture taken in November. Because in April we moved away to a small town in Florida.My mom (who was then age 26) drove there, pulling a U-Haul behind our car. And because there wasn't room for everything my older brother and I had, she tiold us we had to give away many of our toys. I left them in front of the other apartment doors the day before we left. But I did keep a box of books.

So I started a new school about 8 weeks prior to the end of the school year. The classroom was set up with 3 large round tables. One was for the teacher's favorite boy students, another was for her favorite girl students, and the 3rd was for the misfits or bad kids and that was my table. I made friends with one girl who was "bad." The teacher made her stand in the corner a lot with her arms raised in the air for a long time. Looking back I think the teacher didn't like me because I could read really well. I remember asking her if I could read a book to the class and I did. I still have the book. I don't have any class work or report cards or other momentos of first grade, but I have kept that one book.There was a bathroom attached to the class and each afternoon I would go in there and just sit. Probably for about 15 to 20 minutes. In there I could get away from everyone. One day as I made my way back to my seat after sitting in the bathroom I saw weird looks on all the kids' faces and saw them pretend to shove invisible things into their desk areas under the tabletop. I ignored them. They faked they were chewing and swallowing. I continued to ignore them. The teacher watched me as she stood there with a lesson book in hand and I kept my poker face. Then she couldn't stand it anymore and said to one of her favorite students, "Sally, why don't you tell Michele what she missed while she was in the bathroom?"

This girl turned to me and said, "Teacher gave us CANDY!" Well, I knew this was a complete lie because these kids would've had the evidence on their faces and hands, and wrappers would be on the floor if that were true. I didn't say a word and showed no emotion.

I can't remember if I told my mom. Years later I did and she said that she didn't remember me telling her back then as she would have raised heck at the school. At the end of the summer we moved back to California and I started 2nd grade and it was again a new school (we continued to move a lot until 7th grade).

That wasn't the worst thing to happen to me when I was a kid, but it is a clearer memory than many. I smile when I tell my kids my stories and I am so glad that many things are different now than in "the Good Ole Days".