A Personal Story

Danny, you did just fine.

Teachers like Mr Frazier are a blessing to all of us because they bring out the best in students who then rub the energy and enthusiasm off onto others. There is nothing wrong with admiring Mr Frazier.
My equivalent was Mrs Finkel. I had her for both 3rd and 4th grades. Mrs. Finkel and her husband were both teachers. When she was assigned lunch room duty, her husband would join her in our classroom and together they would show us amazing or funny things about numbers and science or words or history. That was more fun than trading sandwiches. When Mrs Finkel taught us division, she taught us long division with huge numbers first. Yes, it was hard. But once we got that (and we all did), everything else was easy. That was her approach--get the hard stuff out of the way first and everything else is easy. That has proven true in many applications.

Another of my better teachers was Mr Z. This was 6th grade 1965. Mr Z was 26 years old, unbelievably handsome, and the first male elementary school teacher most of us had known. Then, if that weren't cool enough, he bought a brand new RED Mustang. Well, the wonderfullness of Mr Z did not stop there. One of our classmates, who we all liked, was a little slow to learn. (To protect his privacy I'll call him 'Johnny' here.) The brand new high school in town had a swimming pool, the very first high school swimming pool in town ever. Groups could rent out the pool for a fee. Mr Z promised our whole class that if every one of us got all of our spelling words right on the test in the same week, he would rent the pool out for us. We all knew that Johnny would have more trouble with this than any of the rest of us. So we took turns helping him study and memorize the spelling words. We did it! We earned a pool party. I think Johnny was happiest of all. Not only that, but we earned 2 pool parties that year. Now, talk about cheesey? Mr Z wasn't quite Mrs Finkel while I knew him, but I had a chance contact with him about 1.5 years ago. He was retired then, had grown children and some grandchildren. He had become a professor later on in his career. Just think of how many young kids and later on, adults, that insightful man encouraged to do their best.

There is no shame at all in having Mr Fraziers, Mrs Finkels or Mr Z's in one's life.

I had to see what you did, because I was really messed up with my story... what to do what to do all day long... you did great!

I loved kindergarten, hated 1st grade, and it only went down hill from there. The main changes were that I was in a new school district, and had gotten glasses for the first time that summer. Kids are cruel, and when you don't have ANY old friends to stick up for you, it is only worse. I had some good teachers that made me feel a little better about school for short periods of time (Mrs. Williams (2nd grade in a third district) & Mr. Kaustrum (high school in a 4th) notably) it never really seemed to stick.

I had to go back to school as an adult (long story) and discovered that not much has changed. No one made fun of me for wearing glasses, but there were still cliques, and I was still left out. I hate to say it, but my childhood educational experience has had a profound negative impact on my life. This is not to say that I blame school for all my problems, or even some of them.

A lot of the impact is that I tend to be a loner and an introvert, which means that I have few real friends. The upside to this is that the few people I call friends would step in front of a bullet for me, and me for them. I guess it isn't all bad, but sometimes I would have liked to have been more popular. Even 20 years later, at my high school reunion, I discovered that the people hadn't changed much, although it was nice to see that I was one of the few people in my class who was still married to their first spouse, and that was 10 years ago.

Life isn't all bad, and neither was school, but I do wish it had been more fun for me.

Danny and dandemacy,

Similar experience here. I am still an introvert. There were a few angels for me, too. I'm 39 now, so it's all distant memories which I actively worked to forget. I've only recently come to realize I am neither ugly nor stupid. Add a cruel alcoholic abusive father and emotionally distant mother to the mix of kid cruelty and even some teacher cruelty and you'll know that totally empathize.

I only recently began remembering some stuff when my 11 year old daughter asked me what 6th grade was like for me. I found out my grade school now has a website and going through it sparked  a few very special memories that had gotten thrown away with the bad. When I was in 5th and 6th grade Sister Mildred, then a younger nun, did a very small thing that made a big difference. Anyway, I contacted her via email (she is now the principal) to give a belated thanks. I was shocked when she responded  because she not only remembered me right away but also the incident. It was very small, all she did was ask me if I was ok and if things were ok at home. That was it. Oh man, just telling about this is making me teary all over again! She was also the coolest nun EVER. She subbed then and whenever we got her is was a real treat. She told the best stories, typically featuring characters like Vlad the Impaler. We all loved her.

There were some other "good guys", like Sister Ruth who in 6th grade wrote me a recommendation for acceptance into a recommendation-only city art program  and made me believe I had talent.