This may be too long for one post. Fourth grade was a monumental year for me in so many ways. Before I started fourth grade, my mom had me go in and meet with the principal. She wanted him to show me around and basically talk to me about how his school was set up compared to the Catholic school I had been attending. Of course, my mom was friends with the new principal, and this becomes important later.
I was lucky that I started fourth grade knowing a few of the kids. My mom had me start in Brownies near our new house so that I could meet some of the neighborhood kids. I didn't really get to do much with them outside of Brownies and girls scouts, but we knew each other. When I switched over to public school, I immediately had a group of girls who were willing to take me in. That was actually really helpful. In fourth grade, I had to take the bus for the first time, which was was weird for me. The really weird thing was that in retrospect, my bus stop was me, some little kids, and a bunch of older burnouts. I think that eventually all of the older kids were kicked out of school and put into special alternative schools for behavior problems. These older kids hated me. I was such a goodie two shoes to them (and I really was). I was also placed in higher reading groups than they were. Boy, did they hate me. Luckily, that didn't mean too much to me, since I only saw them for a few minutes in the morning.
Part of the before school year discussions between my mom and the principal involved my academic abilities and teacher preference. All three years that I was at Edgewood, my mom requested that I get the strictest teacher at each grade level (there were two classes at each grade level). In retrospect, I think I would have benefited from the more maternal teacher each year since I was already getting a lot of strictness at home, but maybe it would not have made much of a difference.
Math at my previous school was not grouped, but at my new school it was. In fact, after a few months, they decided to let the advanced students (about 8 of us, I think) do our math with a self-paced program. Great thinking, but it bombed in practice. No one was watching us and all we did was sit around and talk. Eventually they realized we were actually behind the other kids. Good thing we were all advanced and we caught up easily. I do remember loving that math was grouped and that I was around other kids who were good at math. Of course, I also think I may have been the only girl in this group. There were 50 kids in two classes and for math and reading, we were grouped across the two classes.
Reading was a real problem. They put me in the advanced fourth grade reading group, and the textbook they were reading was the textbook I was assigned in first grade (Images - I can't believe I remember that). I remember complaining to my mom and she told me to wait things out. Eventually, I fell apart at school. I remember having a major crying fit during recess. Kind Mrs. Mahlke, who was a fifth grade teacher, asked me what was going on. I told her that I was so upset that I was reading a baby book. I felt like I was being punished for being a good reader and for being a transfer student. She decided to test me. I don't remember if this was on the spot, or after discussion with other adults. I do know that at some point in fourth grade (I was 8 years old), she had me tested on my reading during recess with no other kids around. I had to do different types of questions (I'm sure reading and then comprehension) for all grade levels. She ran out of material by 12th grade and I hadn't got any wrong. She was shocked. I did get my reading group changed, but it still wasn't where I should have been. They had my mom explain it to me, I think. I should have been in the highest sixth grade reading group based on where I had been at the end of third grade. The problem was there were only two girls in that group. When I moved to fifth and then sixth grade, I would have no one else in reading my group. They didn't want that. Instead, I was moved to the middle sixth grade reading group, and boy, did I receive grief from the kids in the lowest sixth grade group. They hated me. My own group accepted me pretty well. This was so that when I moved to fifth grade, there were still a few kids in sixth grade to be in my reading group with me. I was upset that I was still being made to re-read one textbook, but at least it wasn't three. Also, my new reading teacher was my favorite teacher ever. He supplemented our reading with more advanced stuff, and he loved me. He loved to ask me questions and to see how my mind worked.
Other big changes in fourth grade included two huge steps back (in my little kid mind). Catholic schools, in general, are advanced in reading and writing. When I went from third grade to fourth grade, I had to go back to printing instead of cursive and from pen back to pencil. I really felt that I was being treated like a baby. To this day, I hate writing with pencil.
Handwriting at my new school was a bigger deal than it had been at my old school, and my handwriting is, and was, atrocious. It was so bad that eventually they had me pulled aside to learn typing. When the rest of the class was in the library doing library things, I was learning to type. I, actually loved this, because the reading stuff was way beneath me, and typing was cool. Remember this was just before computers were really available (1978). I used to plink away on my dad's old manual typewriter from when he was in high school. It was awesome to realize that there was a method. I still prefer to type because my writing is so horrible. Even after being together for 13 years, Ethan has trouble reading some of my writing. My brain works way faster than my hands and fingers. Typing allows for that, handwriting does not.
Fourth grade was also a really big deal because it was the first time I got in official trouble at school. At my new school, if you didn't do your homework, you got a notice that your parents needed to sign. After five of these notices, you got a detention. By fourth grade, I noticed that the homework wasn't useful to me. Just like Dermot, writing my spelling words five times each did not help me. So I stopped doing the busy work. Now, I would do homework that I saw the purpose in. I don't think I ever missed a creative writing assignment. To learn to write, you must write, but I didn't see the purpose in rote, repetitive homework. For example, if I was given worksheets of addition, I probably wouldn't have done them either. I was an education snob at a very early age. I also stopped giving my parents the sheets about missed homework. So I got in more trouble. In fourth grade I got my first detention and my mother was livid. Oooh, did I get in trouble. There was no bus ride home for kids in detention, so my mom had to pick me up at 4 after school. She was worried about the sunlight and about getting home in time to get dinner ready for my dad when he got home at 5:30. I got yelled at for days. I'm sure I probably got the belt for it, and I know I got extra chores because of it. I was also told that there was no way it was going to happen again. So, of course, it happened again. The second time was worse. When I realized it was my fifth offense and I was going to get a detention, I lied to the teacher. She asked me what happened to my homework, and I told her that it got destroyed in the rain. She nailed me. I already had some trouble with this teacher because she would call me Lonna May (my middle name is Michelle), and all of the kids called me Fannie Mae (chocolate store out of Chicago). This of course got shortened to Fanny. This teacher also had a dog named Murphy, and she made sure to tell the whole class about that. So I was also called a dog all year by my classmates. So much of my teasing stemmed directly from dumb things this teacher said. After I lied to her, I got the whole sob story about how she tried to be so good to me and yet I let her down and I hurt her by lying to her. Yet, she was the first teacher I talked to about being bored and she told me that I was wrong. She completely ignored me. All of my report cards from her contained the phrase "Lonna is a space cadet." She had no idea that she contributed to that by not engaging me in the class at all. She was also one of those teachers who wouldn't call on me because she knew I knew the answer. So I basically gave up on doing anything at school in her class.
I started down a lot of bad roads in fourth grade, that I never really fixed. This was the beginning of the label "underachiever" being attached to me, which is very common for gifted kids. My grades never really reflected my abilities because I was being graded on stupid, non-interesting stuff. My best grades were always in my hardest classes. If I had to work, I would, and you would see amazing things. Unfortunately, that was all too rare.
As long as this, I do have more to write about. I'll save that for next time.
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