Elementary, my dear Watson. Elementary.
...written on 07.16.05, @ 5:36 p.m.
I was be-bopping around on the internet and decided to Google my old elementary school. I browsed the art teacher's web page and decided to write her an email:
Greetings Ms. K!
I hope your summer vacation is going well. I'm writing as a former student of LW. I was there in elementary school almost 40 years ago. We were the Wrens back then and the school colors were green and white, I believe.
I came as a transfer student from South Carolina, went to C elementary for a short while and then enrolled at LW. It was quite a bit of culture shock at the time, not only the scenery and climate, but the way school worked. At W, the students got up and moved to the different classrooms (math, science, English, art and music etc.), not the way I had been used to, where either the teacher taught all subjects, or the specialist teacher came to our classroom.
At that time, the students in the third grade were divided by colors, red, blue, green, and yellow. We alternated the days we went to art and music. One week, the reds would go three times to art, and two times to music class, and the blues would go three times to music and two times to art. I was never really assigned a color, so after I found it hard to keep up with the rhythm in music, I just went to art every day. LOL! I remember the art teacher giving me funny looks, but nothing ever came of it.
As the year went on, I remember taking lots of standardized tests (and doing lots of guessing) and by the time we hit the fourth or fifth grade, the colors were replaced by the numbers 1,2,3,4. I was in the number 1 group.
In the latter years, I remember we planted a time capsule in a tree well outside of the art room. I don't know if the art room has moved, but I seem to remember it being near the playground equipment.
The late 60's provided lots of interesting stories, one of which was about our science teacher, Mr. H. He got me interested in astronomy (until I found out how much math was involved). He left LW for a job at the local university. It wasn't long after that his picture was in the paper because he was being fired for refusing to shave off his rather abundant beard. I remember all of my classmates gathering around that article and cheering him on.
I credit Mrs. R (later Mrs. B) for helping me fall in love with history and social studies (and German too). She made those subjects come alive with fascinating stories and characters. Over the lunch breaks she taught German to those students who were interested. We learned songs and dances and even went to the state capital to present a show or two.
Mr. C did his best to help me with math, but it didn't work. It was my poorest subject, but he was my favorite teacher and we corresponded occasionally even into my college years. It was Mr. C every year that led the 6th graders at the weeklong camp in the mountains, on an expedition to find a Dairy Queen out in the middle of the desert. Of course they never found one, but he provided them all with ice cream gift certificates at the end of the school year.
That is, until the year I went to camp. As Mr. C gathered everyone together for the "find the Dairy Queen" hike, I convinced three of my friends to take off with me into the desert on our own, since we knew they wouldn't be finding a Dairy Queen out there. Imagine our surprise and let down when we got back to camp to find everyone slurping on ice cream! They had indeed found the holy pail! Mr. C had arranged with Dairy Queen to have an umbrella with a small ice cream stand out in the desert! I sat down on a rock, totally dejected, when a hand pushed an ice cream in my face and a girl I hardly knew offered me hers.
Over the summer, there were activities you could attend. There was a drama/dance kind of class that I went to that I liked so much and was to foreshadow future life choices. The volunteer teacher took the time to write my parents a long note on an LP inside sheath from a Peter, Paul and Mary album detailing her belief that they should encourage my joy in drama and dance.
I'm also reminded of the time in fifth grade during a game of kickball in P.E. class. It was my turn up to kick and my heart squished when I saw everyone come in from the outfield. How I so wanted to kick the ball over their heads to the water fountain. Ever since the third grade, I hated being picked next to last for any team (my friend Ruthie was always the last one picked).
Maybe it was that thought of imagined victory, or that quickly inhaled last breath knotted in my chest, or the tip of my tongue earnestly nestled outside my mouth in the corner of my lips in a gesture of supreme concentration, that when the ball came towards me in "bouncies" like I had requested, and I ran to meet it with a sturdy kick, that it went sailing high and wide over the upturned heads and open mouths of the opposite team and came crashing down by the water fountain.
As I rounded first base, my P.E. teacher, Mr. S, exclaimed, "I didn't know you could kick that far!".
"Me neither!" I laughed as I jogged triumphantly around to home base. Me neither.
Something changed after that kick in fifth grade. Some little athletic coordination switch in me turned on and suddenly I could throw, kick, catch, run and hang the longest in a bent arm position from the monkey bars. I was no longer picked next to last (sorry, Ruthie) and I really began to enjoy sports rather than dread them.
I can't forget about those 'seconds' that they served from time to time in the cafeteria either. Buttered toast and those No bake chocolate peanut butter oatmeal cookies. We called them "fudgies" back then.
Oh goodness, Ms K, I'm sorry I have babbled on, but the point of it all was to show that those experiences and the teachers that lead me through them still matter to me almost forty years later. They are super fond memories and I thank you for taking the time (if you've made it this far) to read them.
I looked at the masks, pottery and sculpture the kids have done on your site and I'm sure, if they haven't done so already, that they will be writing about their art teacher one day.
I had a Ms K as an art teacher in Jr High. That was a different experience though. I went to class all the time, but never handed anything in, so she had nothing to grade me on. Oops!
I am in Japan now teaching English to 3-15 year olds. While teaching has not been my background, I have a whole new world of respect for those who dedicate their lives to it.
My thanks to you and your colleagues for keeping up and enriching the educational tradition at LW.
Best,
Kim