I went to preschool, and I remember a few things, like going on a field trip to a farm, and forgetting my swimsuit when we had a pool party at school. I also refused to take naps but somehow ended up waking up.
In kindergarten, my teacher’s name was Mrs. Hayhurst. Her hair was blond, and I loved her. I remember going to show and tell and I don’t remember what I brought, but some other kid brought in a rattlesnake rattle and it was one of the coolest things I had ever seen. We took pictures of our garden pieces, and I remember being described as having a “green thumb”.
1st grade was cool. I was a bit of a teacher’s pet. Mrs. Malory was really nice, and I used to sneak candy into my mouth when she wasn’t looking because we weren’t allowed to eat in her class. We had a yellow and red card behavioral chart at the front of the room and that was when I first remember having to solve issues with things like my writing and figuring out my left from my right. Since I was trying to do everything with my dominant hand (left), I thought everyone else’s right hand was their left when they faced me. she even tried to get me to write with my right, but that didn’t feel right so I wrote with my left.
2nd grade sucked. Ms. Lawson was a complete meanie. I struggled with keeping up with reading for homework, that was also when I cut my hair, so she picked on me in class a lot. I also used to have to have my mom physically force me into the classroom on a couple of occasions. Seriously, physically drag me from our house, kicking and screaming, hyperventilating pile of fear clear across to the car, through the school, and to the classroom door. One of the biggest things I also remember is that she taught us how to write our names in cursive but didn’t teach us the alphabet because it was something we would be learning in third grade.
My 3rd grade teacher was Mrs. Ford. this was where I started struggling with math. I would have to stay in during lunches because I had to work on late homework or practice my fractions. I was even bad enough at school that the weekly tutor had to spend time with me to help me learn how to spell “different”. I had my first school crush in that class, his name was Anthony, and he was really sweet. He had a little brother who left out his toys and Anthony tripped on it so he went from being the fastest runner in the class to having to wear a neck brace the rest of the year. Good news for me though, cause he was my only competition during exercise. Side note, Mrs. Ford didn’t teach us cursive, she just gave us tests and work for it because we should have already learned it in 2nd grade. So, that was fun.
4th grade, I had Mr. Charles. He was… okay. Not great, not bad. Just boring. He did read us “Hatchet” which was cool. Everything else kind of flew by in that class. Although, I had already developed a school bully. Her name was Shamela, or some other spelling variation. She picked on me cause I was short, because my hair was short, because I was on the free lunch package (basically too poor to bring my own lunch). I stood up for myself on a couple of occasions, but she wouldn’t stop so I eventually learned to ignore her.
5th grade was Ms. Slader. It was something along those lines. It was the last year I was in elementary school, so there was the looming dread of changing schools and stuff. I was in guitar practice, though. I loved playing the guitar. My mom, despite being broke, got together the money to rent a guitar for the after school program. That’s pretty much all I remember about 5th, to be honest.
6th grade is where my life really started to pick up. I was 11/12 in 6th grade. My mom and I had a multitude of problems going on. It all started with my teacher, Ms. Yancy. I hated her, even more so than Mrs. Lawson. She was my science and math teacher; both were subjects I was horrible with at the time. I eventually was forced to be in after-school make-up sessions with her because I was failing so badly. those sessions were extensions of her class, where she singled me out and I felt so stupid for being unable to grasp concepts. I would pick at my eyelashes, and she thought I was just staring off into space, ignoring her. She didn’t know that my mom was months away from having a mental breakdown mid-school year. Oh, she was also my sex-ed teacher, since she taught the girls. That was a joy, having your math/science teacher describe the female anatomy to you on Wednesday and give instructions for your overdue math homework the next day. She ridiculed, and made a point to show my work to the class and say things like ‘this is what not to do’ and ‘I expect better than no effort’. I also, for the life of me, couldn’t understand how a charming woman like that never married.
I also experienced my favorite teacher in 6th grade. Mrs. Knoernschild. She was the only thing I looked forward to at that school. The only thing. I was the only french horn player in her band class, and I played between the trumpets and alto sax. players. She encouraged me, taught me what constructive criticism should entail, and made me actually enjoy anything at the time. At home, I had nothing going well for me, and at school I was being treated horribly by my teacher. But she did her best to help me get my grades high enough to take field trips to our competitions, and helped organize travel arrangements for concerts. I felt like I actually belonged somewhere, and for that she’ll always have my utmost respect for being a valuable member of the human race.
In 7th grade, I moved to Missouri. I knew no one, and my teachers, though generally nice or kind, never made a point to get through to me. I was in 7th grade band as well, and where Mrs. K was exceptional and full of spirit, my 7th grade band teacher clearly wasn’t. I lost my passion for band, and I chose to not pick it up when I went into 8th grade. 7th grade, I had one friend, and she got me to memorize the whole soundtrack to The Nightmare Before Christmas before I even saw the movie. She also brought me into the world of Insane Clown Posse and sketching. I also picked up my first book in 7th grade, and read Eragon. Thank you, 7th grade me. You made the right decision in book genres.
I moved back to California in 8th grade. We lived in Ramona, which is a bit more country-folk of an area in California. I made a friend, I’ll call her Amy. It was my first run-in with helping someone with depression. My experience with dealing with the constant school changes helped me develop a healthy dose of teacher distaste, so we bonded very quickly over how horrible our teachers were (even if they weren’t as bad as the ones I had before).
In 9th grade, I spent 2 weeks at the high school in Ramona before my mom actually started deteriorating again mentally. She started forcing me to stay home from school, and we started getting noticed by the school that it was unlawful to keep me so absent. By the time the end of October came around, I had missed two months of school and was placed into foster care where I yet again changed schools. I met a girl named Destiny, and met some other really cool people. However, in 9th grade, I was very much a private person. I liked my teachers, but I kept myself in the background of things. I was also very detached from the world around me; numb. I had been exposed to the worst of my mom at home, so I didn’t really do anything except what people told me to do. Do your homework? Okay. Eat lunch at this time? Okay.
In 10th grade, we started writing in journals daily for 10 minutes. It could be about anything we wanted, and I believe I still have those journals so I can transcribe them some day. I also remember watching “Lagaan” in my English teacher’s class. I think that was when I was first on the mend for creativity. My Spanish teacher was probably one of my favorites in 10th grade. He was always willing to work with people, was never making judgments about people, and above all, he was awesome enough to give us a break every Friday by having us learn Spanish by singing Spanish songs or watching Disney movies in Spanish. He made teaching a language exciting, for which I’m grateful for.
In 11th grade, I got bullied a lot by a group of senior guys. I remember that my math teacher, I feel bad for not remembering his name, was actually a really cool guy. I’ll go into more details about the bullying in another post, but long story short, he was the first teacher I actually grew to trust. Keep in mind that he taught math, and I was almost traumatized from my 6th grade math teacher. My history teacher was my favorite teacher, though. He was that kind of funny and cheesy guy who loved to make history puns and crack dad jokes. It worked, because he always kept our attention and made history class enjoyable for me. I also got really good grades in his class.
12th grade. Senior year. My favorite was my English teacher. We had to do a video project where it took place in the old west. It had to have a plot, good guys, bad guys, and use themes from the class. I’m going to be honest with you, I worked the shit out of that class. I wrote the short story for it (6 pages in length), the script (i found out I’m not a fan of script writing), I edited the footage, directed the actors (my group members), planned the film meetings, organized our costumes, did accent and historical research, literally busted my ass for that project. Callback to blog post #5, I played the part of villain in the video as well. We got an A, but only because my group mates were sloppy seconds because I made the mistake of grouping with friends and not people who would take it seriously. My English teacher did make every person a little certificate of “most likely to become…” list. I was voted most likely to become a fiction novelist. We shall see. We shall see.
I think I’ll stop it at high school for now, and reserve college for its own section. Until then, I hope you enjoyed reading about my wonderful teachers, and not-so-wonderful teachers!
Hannah-radical 