Educated-- A Personal Narrative-- Written Sept. 2016

           Educated-- A Personal Narrative

            It was as if the entire animal kingdom had sent a representative to the school gym. At least, that’s what it sounded like. I anchored myself in my mother’s hand as I looked around, observing a hundred new faces at each turn. Kindergarten had been a safe place; plenty of new experiences, but tucked away in a corner, just our teacher and us. Now I was required to sit with all the students, grades one through five, dumped headfirst into the sea of… new.

            My mother urged me towards a friend from Kindergarten, but in the course of summer break I had forgotten my confidence and was again out of my comfort zone with my peers. I grasped her hand more firmly. In a moment, a whoosh of skirts announced a new presence: Mrs. Judy Olsen*, first-grade teacher. Tall, calm, and benevolent, she called me by name and led me to a chair in time for the school principal to raise his fist in the ‘quiet coyote’ signal.

            Mrs. Olsen sat next to me through the event, never once suggesting I make friends or leave my mother. Eventually, mom went to meet my siblings’ teachers and I stayed. I shadowed Mrs. Olsen, hiding among the folds of her flowing skirt as she met other students and spoke with each parent. She allowed me to be and act in whatever way was comfortable. I was immediately at home with her easy manner and her immediate love of every child presented to her. Every once in a while, she smiled at me through tasteful, bronze glasses, reminding me that I was safe.

            The first time I met Angela Waters, I thought she must be Mrs. Olsen’s long-lost twin. The only difference I could see between the two was hair color; where Mrs. Olsen’s hair was a light, sandy brown, Mrs. Waters' was an unassuming shade of red. As a brand-new third grader, that was the thing that stood out the most to me: her hair. In Mrs. Waters' class, we did a lot of poetry, practiced math facts, and wrote stories. At one point we even wrote and performed an opera as a class. More than the things we did, however, I remember that Mrs. Waters listened.

            It was a Friday, which meant we would be going to P.E. that day. P.E. was one of my least favorite subjects, mainly because I abhorred shoes and consistently forgot to wear them on P.E. day. My sandals elicited not only comments, but threats of punishment from the well-meaning P.E. teacher: one of her main rules was to wear tennis shoes to keep our feet safe.

            On this particular day, I had realized halfway to school that I was again wearing sandals on a Friday. The week before, the teacher had promised that if I forgot my shoes again, I would be receiving a white slip—a punishment that I had never yet received in my life and did not want on my record. As a third grader, it was the end of the world.

            My sister—who, despite being two years older than I was, wore the same shoe size—offered to let me borrow her shoes, which she had in her backpack as she, too, had P.E. that day. She told me that on the way to P.E., I should stop by her cubby for the shoes. This calmed me a great deal; however, when the time came for P.E., I was too afraid to approach her backpack for fear I would get in trouble for stealing.

            P.E. ended exactly how I thought it would: the teacher, as kindly as she could, instructed me to meet her at the office at the end of school so she could issue me my white slip. I nodded, doing what I could to hold my composure, but by the time we reached our class, I was in tears. Mrs. Waters gave the class an independent assignment and took me out to talk. In broken spurts, I laid the whole story before her in what I thought was great detail: going to borrow my sister’s shoes, losing my nerve, and being told I would receive a white slip at the end of the day. Mrs. Waters reassured me that everything would be okay, and that one white slip wouldn’t change the fact that I was a wonderful little girl. She told me to never forget that mistakes are just mistakes; they don’t change my worth.

            This was comforting enough. I went throughout the day mildly upset, but Mrs. Waters' words grew on me. By the time I approached the office at the end of the day, I felt courageous. I told the secretary who I was looking for and waited with bated breath, wondering what it would feel like to see my name on the dreaded white slip. When the P.E. teacher emerged, she asked me what I was in need of. I reminded her that she owed me a white slip and, to my astonishment, she answered, “White slip? What are you talking about? Go on home sweetheart, you don’t have a white slip.”

            I never told Mrs. Waters, but I knew what she had done, and to this day it is one of the sweetest memories of my childhood. Being issued a white slip would have faded quickly into the background of my childhood, but the message of love from a great teacher became one of the great building points of my self-esteem.

            One day soon following the white slip incident, my name was called on the intercom: “Jenica Christensen, please come to the office; Jenica Christensen.” The old fear rose up. I’m in trouble, I thought, and I racked my brain all the way through the cold, empty hallways, wondering what I had done. When I arrived at the office, my P.E. teacher waited for me. I thought for a moment that she had remembered my white slip, but she only smiled and handed me a box. On my way back to class, I opened it. Inside was a brand-new pair of shoes.

            Mr. Thomas was an altogether different experience. I was thirteen years old and just entering the eighth grade when I first walked into his class. He was the math teacher. I had struggled in math at times, but until this point I had come to the conclusion that even though it didn’t come naturally to me, with determination I could do it. I could get A’s. And at first, I did… until I had Mr. Thomas.

            He was somewhat tall, clean-shaven and had a buzz cut. His belly was slightly bigger than he may have liked, but to us it was just a part of him. No one cared much. Mr. Thomas told jokes between every problem, but only half of us laughed. Most of his jokes were sarcastic, and the rest of them were references that only a few of us caught. Every day, he would do a list of problems for us on the overhead, talking as he did them, and then he assigned us homework. At first, I came to him with my questions, but he would only whip out a paper and do the same thing he’d done on the overhead. If I still didn’t get it, he would hold back his frustration while he did the same thing yet again, and after a couple of times of that, I gave up. I told myself I would go home and ask my dad, but the math reminded me of the class and I usually put it off until it was too late and I had another assignment with 50% or less.

            The tests were the worst. They counted the most towards our grades and had the toughest questions. I was allowed to retake them, but until I had an F and was faced with having to give up theatre, nothing was motivation enough to go after school and spend an extra hour with that man. But when theatre was on the line, I retook my math tests. I would go in, he would hand me a page, and I would sit down and fill it out. Silence for the entire hour. When I handed it to him, he would take it without a word. Re-taking a test wasn’t an opportunity to make up mistakes. It was a punishment for being incompetent in the first place.

            My favorite day of Mr. Thomas’s class was the day he tore his pants. I knew it was terrible of me, but when his pocket caught the corner of the whiteboard’s marker tray, I secretly thought he deserved it for all the embarrassment and stress he had caused me. He went around the rest of the day with a jacket around his waist, and every time I saw him in the hallway I shared a secret smile with myself.

            There was one very good thing that came of my time with Mr. Thomas, however: I dropped math. My plan was to take math online and go to regular school for everything else, but when I had finished the ninth grade without math I decided to do the rest of my schooling that way. The last three years of High School, everything was an elective. I took whatever I wanted at school and made up for what I missed at home. I found I learned much more that way; taking only the classes that held my interest.

            It was in one of those classes that I met Laura Bennett. Laura was nearly fifty and as spry as any of us were. She taught every kind of physical education class, from ballroom to aerobics, and I took nearly all of them. She had a way of speaking on everyone’s level; she never seemed to act any different and yet everyone got along with her. She laughed easily and taught lovingly.

            Laura would demonstrate everything, even after she’d had back surgery and was supposed to keep at least one foot firmly on the ground at all times. She even demonstrated the boys’ part on every ballroom move; it was encouraging to us to know that our teacher was willing to do everything she expected of us. I have a particular memory of Laura watching me try a ballet move I’d just learned; she laughed as I tried to keep my hands in position while also keeping track of my feet. She never laughed in a hurtful way, though—she laughed in a way that let us know she understood.

            Laura was our friend, and yet none of us would cross her. She had our attention and respect because we had hers; we would have gone to the moon for her because she would have for us. This regard didn’t come as a result of our performance, either—she loved us simply because we were there, and that made her corner of the school a comfortable place to be.

            The first time I walked into Claire Butler's choir class as a Sophomore, nothing remarkable happened. She was practically legendary, so I expected her class to be a daily adventure, but there wasn’t anything in particular that stood out to me that first day. It took me all three years of being in her choirs before I fully pinpointed what made her so acclaimed: It was the little things.

            Mrs. Butler’s class was a place where you were allowed to discover yourself. She let us make mistakes and corrected us when we needed it, but she never once allowed us to be any less than we were. My sophomore year, I missed auditions for Concert Choir because I had been traveling, and Mrs. Butler gave me my own personal audition. She was an excellent pianist and could play nearly anything you put in front of her, so I brought my music in to her office and we sang using her office piano. Before I sang my prepared piece, however, she warmed up with me; singing scales, testing my range, and getting me ready to sing. She nodded a few times, seeming pleased. Then she started in on the introduction, but a phrase or two into the song she stopped playing and looked at me. She seemed disappointed, saying, “Where did your voice go?” She then proceeded to give me a miniature voice lesson, helping me to apply the power in my warmups to my actual performance. I left the audition feeling that here was someone who actually cared about her students’ performance—not for her, but for the students. She could have listened to my song, thanked me for auditioning, and sent me on my way. Instead, she set aside time from her day to coach me for no other reason than my own success.

            Claire was not a tender person. More often than not, her manner was straightforward and professional, sometimes in a way that was intimidating and daunting. She didn’t coddle or comfort us when we were challenged; instead, she picked us back up on our feet and gave us a figurative kick to the rear to get us moving again. Claire was a person who understood the value of moving forward. She knew as long as we sat where we were, we would continue to be discouraged—so she didn’t let us.

            I desperately wanted to please her, sometimes to the point of forgetting to please myself. I think she could see this in me, and she didn’t like it; she never was one to get along with people-pleasers. That is not to say she didn’t like me—no. I’m sure she liked me plenty. It was the ‘me’ I fabricated for her that drove her crazy.

            She loved to laugh, and she found every opportunity to do so. We held fly-swatting competitions, gave ridiculous Christmas gifts, and pulled pranks. It wasn’t the quality of the performances that made the experience; rather, it was the quality of the classroom experiences that built us up and made quality performers of us.

            It wasn’t until halfway through my senior year, when everyone around me was choosing colleges and auditioning for college programs, that I first considered teaching; and it was only the thought of being like Laura that made me want to teach. For a short few weeks, I imagined taking over her job when she retired, and then I decided teaching wasn’t truly my passion and started an English degree. If not for my job as a teacher’s aide, I may never have reconsidered the option of being a teacher—a job I only applied for because the money was better.

            Throughout my time as an aide, however, I found myself falling further and further into a passion I hadn’t known existed. Teaching became the only thing I could imagine myself doing. As I experimented further with my teaching abilities, my own teachers came into my mind—how much they affected me, and how much they must have cared for me. I had always wanted to do something that was memorable, that did good for the world, and as I taught and reflected on my own teachers, I realized that here was a place where I could. No one effects the world quite like a teacher. No one loves children in quite the same way. Now that I’m here, I can’t imagine doing anything different. I love to teach!

*Names changed for comfort and privacy