My journey of faith leads me to the second grade. A year that changed my life. A year that made it possible to write this blog without starting each sentence with the same word. :)
It was a big year and at first it wasn't going the way I wanted it to.
But thank goodness it unfolded the way it did.
My second grade self; a bit chubby, with long, mousy brown hair and eager to learn; stepped into Mrs. H's room. It was a typical room, not exciting, not cluttered- just efficient and sterile. The huge chalkboard took up the entire front wall of the class, with all the desks in neat rows facing it, like soldiers standing to attention. A row of big windows lined the entire wall opposite the entrance.
I quickly picked a desk near the windows because outside those windows there was life.
Adventure. A little bit of life in the otherwise cold, Arctic environment that was my second grade life.
Towering maple trees lined the school outside my view and when I was bored it was easy to be distracted by the whirling and swirling of maple tree seeds, like little helicopter blades traveling where the wind took them.
I wasn't fond of Mrs. H, not after she caught me counting on my fingers.
"Don't count on your fingers." She frowned, her white bushy eyebrows drawing together with icy disapproval.
I just stared at her, afraid to question this imposing, strict disciplinarian.
"When you're an adult all your fingers might be chopped off, or frozen off and then they'll have to chop them off and then what are you going to count on? You won't be able to count on them anymore. Math in your head."
Chopped off? Frozen off? I swallowed, staring at my fingers, completely horrified.
But that was Mrs H's teaching style.
For reading groups, all the second grade was going to be tested and then divided into three different levels with each second grade teacher taking a class. Mr. S would take the highest readers, I know I would be in that group. Mrs. Tracy would teach the middle group and Mrs. H would have the struggling kids.
On the day of the test, I knew, just knew that I would be put in Mr. S's class. I had devoured every book I could read since I was preschool age. The library and I were already great pals. There was no question in my mind which group I was going to belong to.
Unfortunately, the reading test wasn't what I was expecting. I had to read passages from books- aloud- with perfect pronunciation.
I, had to read aloud, the kid that had a speech teacher.
I knew what the words meant, I had a huge dictionary inside my head.
But I struggled to pronounce the words correctly.
When the groups were decided, I wasn't selected for Mr. S's class. I was placed with Mrs. Tracy.
Me. The smarty pants of the second grade was put in a class that wasn't the highest level.
I was embarrassed. Mad at myself for failing. My pride had taken a hit.
But sometimes pride has to fall.
The day of our new reading groups I entered Mrs. Tracy's room with resentment and anger. I just knew I was in the wrong group, the teachers didn't know what they were doing.
I stepped into her room ready to hate her and then I froze...if Mrs. H was rim rod straight and cold...
Then Mrs. Tracy was the exact opposite. Her room was warm and inviting. Mobiles, made of natural materials, hung from the ceiling. Posters, not silly school charts, but art covered the walls. Her colors were forest green, warm brown and Earthy tones. In the corner, she had made a reading corner with bean bag
chairs and an Earth tone colored rug, surrounded by short, wooden
bookshelves. Kids with content smiles read intently.
And even though she had been assigned the same sterile space that all the other teachers had been given, she had created something special and unique. A true learning environment.
Our group from Mrs. H's class stood in shock. How come our room didn't look like this?
This was a paradise.
Mrs. Tracy approached us with a gentle, welcoming smile on her face. Some where in her fifties, her long, thick black hair was only peppered with a bit of gray. But it wasn't styled, just drawn back into a hippie braid and slung casually over her shoulder.
She was slender, dressed in brown corduroy pants and a flowing blouse. Her hands were beautiful- long, sculpted fingers, wrinkled with age and moving delicately as she spoke softly.
Every once in a while she would pause and tuck a stray piece of hair back behind her ear. The smile never left face.
She gestured towards the room and we were invited, actually invited, to enter this wondrous domain she had created.
None of us hesitated.
During the next few months I settled into the best kind of learning with her. She had created an environment that was encouraging, nurturing, challenging.
Softly, with a voice that never seemed frustrated or upset with any of us, she guided us to improve our reading while retaining our love for learning.
Reading aloud to her I never felt embarrassed by my faltering words.
She knew my difficulties weren't with the words and their meanings but with my speech.
This meant she encouraged me to read novels to myself. And enjoy books and their wonderful stories for myself and not allow the difficult schooling part of it damage my love for literature.
When I completed my work I could read in her reading corner. It was a treat. Not just for me but for all the kids. That corner was never empty because someone was always reading in it.
She also worked on writing with us. My first story I wrote for her was about a dinosaur. And this poor dinosaur did a lot of things in my dozen sentences.
But every sentence started with the word, 'the'.
It was quite repetitious.
Mrs. Tracy pulled me to the side, she never corrected a student with an audience.
"Christy, I like your story." Her gentle smile warmed me and I beamed.
"What if you didn't start every sentence with the same word?" She pointed to my obvious over use of the word, 'the.'
I frowned at first, hurt because my favorite teacher had found something wrong with my dino story. And then I really started to listen to the encouraging tone in her voice that hadn't threatened me to learn or else but had guided me to learn something new without feeling like I had failed because I hadn't gotten it right the first time.
From that time forward my stories never overused the word, 'the'.
And instead of squashing something just blooming, she nurtured it. My love of reading and writing was strengthened by this teacher that I haven't even wanted.
But I'm so thankful I wasn't put in the other class. I ended up right where I needed to be at that time. My pride had been scuffed but what I learned from Mrs. Tracy changed me. And to this day I still write her. A second grade reading class led to a life long friendship.
So my journey leads me to believe that we must not let pride get in the way of our faith. We might miss opportunities to know the 'bestest' of friends and mentors.
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