A is A
In 1981, I had my first homework ever, out of my first textbook ever. It was a spelling assignment. The first question was, "What sound does the letter a make?" I nearly cried — how the hell is a second grader supposed to write that without using the letter a itself? And if you just write the letter a, what does that prove?
I watched the space shuttle Columbia launch on TV at school at the end of first grade. I decided I was going to be an astronaut. I started learning the names of all the stars so I wouldn't get lost when I got there.
We had three reading groups, divided by skills. I was in the blue group, the most advanced one, with two other kids. The other two were the yellow group and the green group, respectively. I find it interesting, in retrospect, that these reading groups had little bearing on what level anyone was on several years later.
I was in a split class, 2nd and 3rd grade together. I spent too much time watching what the 3rd graders were doing to enjoy my 2nd grade work. My friends and I used to volunteer to organize the bookshelf to get out of other work. Those books (several hundred) were probably re-alphabetized 8 or 10 times.
In my social studies class, I made friends with a girl named Candice. She was the first black friend I'd ever had, that I know of, but I was colorblind, so to speak. It didn't matter to me. One day, my social studies teacher (a cranky old white woman) got onto me for talking too much, and her lecture included mention that I shouldn't be socializing with black people anyway. I was confused. I wish now I would have told my regular teacher about it (she was an african-american woman, and I'm sure wouldn't have approved of her peer-teacher's recommendation), but it never crossed my mind to do so.
I sat next to my friend Tanya. It turns out the crush she developed for me that year continued all the way to 9th grade. We were in the same homeroom class every year in between, and I never had any idea she liked me.
I watched the space shuttle Columbia launch on TV at school at the end of first grade. I decided I was going to be an astronaut. I started learning the names of all the stars so I wouldn't get lost when I got there.
We had three reading groups, divided by skills. I was in the blue group, the most advanced one, with two other kids. The other two were the yellow group and the green group, respectively. I find it interesting, in retrospect, that these reading groups had little bearing on what level anyone was on several years later.
I was in a split class, 2nd and 3rd grade together. I spent too much time watching what the 3rd graders were doing to enjoy my 2nd grade work. My friends and I used to volunteer to organize the bookshelf to get out of other work. Those books (several hundred) were probably re-alphabetized 8 or 10 times.
In my social studies class, I made friends with a girl named Candice. She was the first black friend I'd ever had, that I know of, but I was colorblind, so to speak. It didn't matter to me. One day, my social studies teacher (a cranky old white woman) got onto me for talking too much, and her lecture included mention that I shouldn't be socializing with black people anyway. I was confused. I wish now I would have told my regular teacher about it (she was an african-american woman, and I'm sure wouldn't have approved of her peer-teacher's recommendation), but it never crossed my mind to do so.
I sat next to my friend Tanya. It turns out the crush she developed for me that year continued all the way to 9th grade. We were in the same homeroom class every year in between, and I never had any idea she liked me.