School Daze: Kindergarten

It's the beginning of a new school year and I thought it might be fun to rehash some of my memories of my own K-12 experiences. By fun, I mean probably awkward, painful, and fraught with stuff I can tell my therapist! Enjoy.

Kindergarten:

It's actually so funny how excited I was about the first day of school and how despairing I was by the time that day was over. My naive little self thought this school thing would rock, and I would rock because I could already read and write. I was so wrong.

I also thought it would be cool because my teacher, although no relation to me, had my last name. I suppose in my 5 yr old mind, having the same name gave us some kind of magical connection that would keep us in synchronicity. Again, I was wrong. That woman was an irrational bitch who should have been allowed no where near children. And I knew this by the end of the first day.

I've talked about some of her evil shenanigans before (heads on the desk, paddling me, bitchery over my creative talents), so I'll just discuss this thing she did to me on the first day of school. When I was dropped off for the day, I was told that my grandmother would be picking me up. I was to wait on the playground and leave with her, and then she was going to drive me to the nearby town where we would have a nice dinner to celebrate my first day of school.

The problem was, while I was told this, no one bothered to tell my teacher. As the school day ended, she began to sort us all into what lines we needed for our bus routes. I told her I wasn't to be put into line because my grandmother was picking me up and I started to walk off to the place where I was told to wait.

The teacher grabbed my arm and jerked me back into the line. She got down on my level and hissed at me that I would do as I was told. I tried to explain to her that while this might be the case later on, today it was not so.

I like to consider how this sounded given my 5 yr old speaking skills and the fact that I was crying due to the arm pull.

"B-but . . . Gran is pickin me UP and they pointed to there to wait." All of this would be said through tears and sniffling. It's one of those situations that a small child, having just met one of the most evil people in the world, as some difficulty in communicating.

Were this conversation happening to me as I was older, it would not have been the case. "Excuse me, Miss Evil, but I do believe there has been a misunderstanding. As this is my first day of school, my step-grandmother has plans for me in which we shall celebrate.  I would very much like it if you let me go stand where I was told to stand so that I may go with her and my impressions of my first day of school would not be all the disheartening and borderline abusive things you have done, but a pleasant afternoon with someone I love."

Even through tears,  I think she would have gotten that. Although, to be honest, I think "Bitch, let me go and get the fuck away from me" is closer to what she deserved.  Yes, I know no one likes it when kids cuss their teachers. This one needed it.

Because, the story doesn't end with my clambering into the bus with my little hurt arm. It also doesn't end with the next two hours of fear because this bus driver wasn't going anywhere remotely near my house (though he finally did). Nor does it end with now wretchedly carsick I got on the trip.

The story ends with the fact that my grandparents on my mom's side knew I would be with my other grandmother, so they decided to drive into town and get some shopping done. My parents were both at work and wouldn't get home until almost eight. My grandmother, having never found me after school, assumed plans had changed and that she hadn't been told, so she went to visit her mother.

When I got my little five year old self off of that bus at my grandparents' house, they weren't home. My parents weren't home. Our nearest neighbors lived too far away for me to walk to their house to call. So until almost seven that evening, I sat on my grandparents' porch, alone, confused, a bit scared, very hungry, and weeping.

Needless to say, my first day of school and its various levels of pain, humiliation, and torment had a strong and lasting impression on how I would view school as a concept and teachers in general. All excitement and wonderment I had about going to school died as I was sitting on that porch. It would be many, many years before I   regained an positive feelings about the educational experience.