School Daze: Third Grade

I'm sure you can guess that by the time I arrived in third grade, I was fairly much over this whole school thing. I was jaded about it and, quite frankly, going through so much stuff at home that school was the last thing on my mind. And this, of course, was part of the problem.

My teacher was a middle aged woman with large round glasses and that short tightly curled do favored by many women of middle years with curly hair. On some of them, it looks exotic and carefree. Not on most. She was one of the most. I really can't tell you a lot about her because she made no effort to be important.

This was a year of major transitions for me. My grandparents had left the area where we lived and I felt abandoned and very alone because of this. Once they were gone, my stepfather's behavior grew worse and worse. I experienced things and witnessed things during this time that no child should have to go through. Most of the time, I just went through the motions of life. I was a zombie.

The only good thing about him getting worse is that he eventually got so bad that even my mother realized this was fucked up. See previous post about eating convenience store food on the morning she left him. Hmm. I might have even gotten my age wrong during that post. Stupid memory. Anyway . . .

Third grade was one of those times when my mother's fuckery and my school years overlapped. When she left the bastard, she didn't feel safe going back to our house so we moved in with my grandparents. As I have mentioned before, my grandparents lived in another state so clearly my going to school became an issue. My mother saw no reason to transfer me into the school where they were living, because she knew we wouldn't be here for very long (because she already had another husband lined up....and planzzzz).

This might have been a problem, but my grandparents came up with a solution. Our preacher's wife (who also lived in the same town) taught at my school. It was arranged that I would ride to and from school with her. I agreed to this because I just couldn't handle the thought of going to different school for less than a year before Mom moved us again. At first this was all I saw it as. Then I met Mr. Riley.

Mr. Riley lived in town too and commuted with the preacher's wife. He taught sixth grade and was the only male teacher in the elementary. You'll notice he's the first teacher I've mentioned by name. That's because he's the first one who I feel deserves one. In fact, even though I never had Mr. Riley actually AS my teacher, he is the first teacher who really, truly made a difference in my life.

He seemed tall to me, though I think he was about average height. He was slightly heavy and had gray hair and glasses. He also had a gentle demeanor and a kind smile. His voice was strong and gravely. It reminded me of the way coffee smells, warm, rich, and inviting.

On the first day he met me, he looked me in the eyes and smiled. He bent down and shook my hand and called me by my name as he said he was pleased to meet me.  I am pretty sure he had been given the details of my situation, because as I have grown older and been around people who who work with kids from screwed up situations, they handled the kids with the same gentleness.

Most of the time, as I rode in the back of the car, I was content to just be quiet and listen to the adults talk. I liked the lull of their voices. Both of them were pleasant and relaxed, not something I was used to. I remembered thinking how this was how sane adults should act. It's something I still hold onto even now.

The interesting thing was, I never felt left out. They didn't include me in every conversation, but I never felt ignored from them. They would tell me stories about their school years. They would recommend books to me. In fact, Mr. Riley even brought me books from time to time to read. I was always really careful with them and read the books as quickly as I could. The best days would be the days we would discuss the books as we drove home.

As far as I am concerned, between 8-3, I was just a kid at a desk. I wasn't being taught anything. I was just going through the motions of obeying the rules and doing the worksheets. However, in the hour or so on the way to school and the hour or so   on the way home from school, I WAS being taught. Perhaps for the first time since I started school, I was really being taught things.

And those hours were invaluable to me. I think that commute was the best thing that happened during my first several years of school. It is, truthfully, the ONLY purely happy experience I had during those years in an academic sense. And I believed it really saved me in terms of how I would view education and myself.

Mr. Riley wasn't someone who saw teaching as "just a job." I really believe that to him, it was a vocation. He seemed to understand that teaching was something that didn't just happen in his classroom and it didn't just happen because he had a degree and could tell little kids to open a book. He knew that teaching happened because he TAUGHT. He could develop a rapport with people, knew how to create a relaxed and pleasant environment, and how to engage students into really exploring the world around them.

It's really ironic that I only became a part of those commutes because of my mother's further-husband-plans. It was just the easiest thing for HER. However, it became the best thing for me and I am so grateful for that time. I wish I could have been in the area when I could have had Mr. Riley as my teacher and I was very sad when he passed away.

So yes, I will say my third grade year of school was good for me. Not because of anything that happened in my third grade class, but because of something that happened outside of it.