I hated my sixth grade teacher.
I loved school up till sixth grade. Mrs. Hewlett, the sixth grade tyrant, ruined it for me. The funny thing is, though, that today I can no longer remember what was so awful about her. The only thing I remember clearly now is the one good thing about her: She gave creative writing assignments. I loved writing even back then, and when the homework was creative writing—which came about just a few times during the school year—I couldn’t wait to work on my otherwise-dreaded homework.
Even in my time—and “my time” was a long time ago—the song “School Days” (from which the title of this blogpost is taken) reflected a time past. I don’t know about other people and other places, but when and where I was in elementary school, there was no corporal punishment allowed on the part of the teachers, no “hick’ry stick” or paddle applied to students’ behinds. But the line that preceded that line, “Reading and writing and ’rithmetic,” was certainly applicable to my elementary schooling.
I totally don’t comprehend the modern math methods, but I can still do long division on paper without the calculator on my computer, know my times tables, and keep my checkbook balanced the old-fashioned way. I was taught well and, through frequent use, have retained much of what I was taught in basic arithmetic—though don’t ask me about algebra or geometry. I wasn’t a stellar student when it came to math, but I usually got at least a B-. Reading? I was reading third-grade readers in first grade, sixth-grade readers in third grade. I was a voracious reader, surely one of the town library’s most devoted patrons, and had shelves full of books at home. But it was at writing where I really shone.
Except in Mrs. Oschwald’s class. She was either my fourth- or fifth-grade teacher. I forget which. And she marked me down for penmanship. Sure, my creativity and structure were excellent, but my penmanship, to put it bluntly, sucked. And so she gave me a low grade. This upset my mother no end, and she demanded a parent-teacher conference, one-on-one, to reason with Mrs. Oschwald. Without denying that my handwriting was atrocious, my mother nevertheless felt that I should not get a low grade in writing, at which I excelled. No other teacher had ever factored handwriting into the equation when grading for writing. Nonetheless, Mrs. Oschwald held firm and prevailed, much to my mother’s dismay and displeasure. Her only recourse was to intensify my handwriting practice at home, but that was a lost cause.
But we were talking about sixth grade….
Mrs. Hewlett—who gave me high marks for writing—required us to write something creative several times during the year. It could be a play, a poem, a short story…she didn’t want anything as mundane as a factual report on whatever holiday was usually the assigned topic. I think I mostly turned in poems, even though very little of my professional output as an adult has been in the poetry field, and those poems that I have penned professionally have mostly been for kids. I always got an A (or A+) on my creative writing assignments for Mrs. Hewlett, and I only wished she gave such assignments more often.
You could say that my success at creative writing in elementary school presaged my authorial career, but as a child I foresaw no such future. I was dead set on being an actress. (The reason I was forced to give up that dream is too long a story to go into here and too much of a digression besides.) Small wonder I wrote a play, then, while I was still in elementary school. (Perhaps I’ll tell you about that in next week’s blogpost.)
But if I hated my sixth-grade teacher, I sure loved those creative writing assignments.
Nobody ever needed the hick’ry stick the song told about to get me to sit down and write.