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May 2008
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Nostalgia, in brief.

1979Posting the picture of myself when I had my “dragon” tooth has caused me to think a lot about my time growing up.

As sort of childhood nostalgia, if you will, even though my time at Park Hill Elementary School was pretty awful—save for my kindergarten, first, third, fifth, and sixth grade teachers. The other teachers were either forgettable or awful (see fourth grade). My classmates were, for the most part, assholes.

In first grade I was playing on the jungle-gym before class started—I think it was a cold and snowy day, certainly it was in October—when I fell off and broke my left elbow and left wrist. I didn’t make much of it, I, apparently, only told my teacher that my arm felt “funny,” which was enough for her to send me to the nurse, which resulted in a cast on my arm. I missed the school Halloween parade that year, as well as going trick-or-treating in the neighborhood.

I still remember that in “science” class, we once got to look at rocks. Seriously.

My second grade teacher was pregnant and part way through the year we got another teacher—I don’t really remember much about that year, other than the fact that on the first day of class the teacher took our photos as we posed in front of her faux Big-Bird bulletin board.

In third grade I had the same teacher that my brother had—she was pretty cool. That was also the grade that we learned how to write in cursive—an extremely useful tool that I can still mangle with the best of them—although I have relatives whose handwriting I cannot read at all.

1984Fourth grade was the worst year in elementary school—I hated my teacher and she (actively) hated me. I was so relieved to move on to fifth grade.

Fifth grade had a pretty cool teacher—I seem to remember that year as going pretty well—I was in a classroom that faced the front of the building—I think all the rest of my classrooms either faced the back or were in the newly built annex.

My last year of elementary school I remember having some disagreements with my teacher—she seemed young and slightly naïve at the time, but was, for the most part, pretty cool. My class was half sixth grade and half fifth grade.

6 comments to Nostalgia, in brief.

  • It’s hard for me to believe that your 4th grade teacher actually HATED you.

    What did you do, if anything, to incur this? Or was it simply a personality conflict?

    I had a few good teachers and mostly indifferent ones. But none of them hated me.

  • koko

    How did you feel about your split class? When I was in grade school I had 3rd/4th split in my class. I can remember being confused as to what I actually had to know because I would pay attention to both the 3rd and 4th grade stuff…

  • Ed

    My 5th grade teacher’s husband was a child molester and my 8th grade English teacher was a child molester. He committed suicide after it came out. He did sit several of the 8th grade girls on his lap during class. Those heteros you have to wonder about them.

  • @cameron: her principal flaw was that she didn’t condemn the bullying i faced, and sometimes participated in it. She was probably the second worst teacher I had in my entire experience in the Denver Public Schools. Mrs. McCann was awful, and I’ll put her name in the comments.

    @koko: I was indifferent about the split class. My cohort was 2.5 classes large all six years, so one group of my classmates always was split with another grade.

    @Ed: the husband is ok, as long as he doesn’t come to school; The 8th grade teacher is awful.

  • I love your quote “I still remember that in ‘science’ class, we once got to look at rocks. Seriously.”

    It made me giggle a lot. I shall henceforth refer to my husband’s job as “he is a professor of looking at rocks.”

  • @Helen: If you want to make it sound even better, we used magnifying glasses!