Lessons Learned: Elementary School

Jefferson Elementary School

Springdale, Arkansas

1st grade
Lessons:   1. Don’t Jump Over Drainage Ditches
                2. Always walk through the culvert.

Awe, 1960, lunch-time memories, my heart melts simply reminiscing. This six year old had one full hour to briskly walk from point A to point B (school to Ruby’s), eat Grandma’s cooking with her, Melvin, Dale and Harvey then playfully wonder from point B to point A.

Eddie and I had one big decision each day during our leisurely walk back to school. We could take the short cut which consisted of a climb down into a culvert and trek through it to the other end of the block. Or, we could stay on the road and jump over a three foot wide, two foot deep ditch.

The ditch was guarded by a rose bush stump, hidden beneath a few blades of strategically placed green grass. Eddie and I pretended we needed a small push to elongate our jump across the vast expanse. On day Eddie pushed, I landed on my knees and the rose bush stump attacked. Eddie walked his screaming cousin back home, and Melvin took a much longer lunch than planned to take my knee to Dr. White’s office for twelve well-placed stitches.

2nd grade
Lesson:  Randy will never be able to read.

“I want to be in the same reading group as Karen,” I pronounced.
The long faced witch, Mrs. Long, replied, “Karen is a good reader. You can’t read.”
I believed her for many years.

Jones Elementary School

Springdale, Arkansas

3rd grade
Lesson:  Brother can sound like a donkey.

“YEE HAW, YEE HAW.”

“There’s a donkey at school!” shouts Mrs. Calico’s 3rd grade class.

“YEE HAW, YEE HAW.”

“Dale Tyler! I told you yesterday that you are NOT to bray like a donkey in the lunch line,” shouted Mrs. Kidd. I did not get the first school paddling in our household.

4th grade
Lessons: 1. Don’t Bale Out of the Swing
              2. Teacher ego is more important than learning.

School Rule: Do Not Bale Out of Any Swing

RRRIIINNGG

One last swing, I feel the breeze push my hair from my face as I fly high into the sky. The pendulum swings in the opposite direction, and my hair is blown into my face. The pendulum swings forward again. I grab the thick gray chains tighter, my dress is pushed behind the wooden seat, I extend both legs and at the precise moment I JUMP. Smiling at a perfect landing, OH NO, my skirt is still swinging. Laughter from the strange children that share my classroom invades my brain. Left standing in front of the swing with the top of a new dress and a white slip, I cried.

Mrs. Jones, a Mrs. Long clone, showed no sympathy for the small rule breaker. Even though I was a ‘walker’ and kept emergency cloths at Ruby’s literally minutes away, she found pleasure in making me wear ill-fitted, donated clothes. You know, the ones saved for girls who still wet their panties?

5th grade
Lesson: School is more fun when the teacher likes you best.

Mrs. Alexander loved me. I was the teacher’s pet.

Central Elementary School

Springdale, Arkansas

6th grade
Lessons: 1. I will never be able to spell.
              2. Recess is not important.
              3. If Randy copies spelling words 200 times each weekly, she will spell.

Not only can I not read, but now I am told I will not ever be able to spell.

“Randy, you have to spend your recess writing your missed spelling words each Friday,” commanded Mrs. Smith. No she wasn’t related to my first grade teacher. In fact, after years of reflection, I am convinced she was Mrs. Long’s grandmother.

Alright, I didn’t like it, but since she was in charge I always showed up right after lunch. I picked up my paper, sat down and begin to write.

Umm, several months passed, my routine was down pat, and Mrs. Smith failed to put my failed spelling test in the normal place. I waited hours for her to show, and then I made the very logical decision to join my classmates on the playground.

That day, Dale was no longer the only child in our family to be paddled at school.