Fourth Grade

As Shelby successfully completes her second week in fourth grade, I thought I would share with you my fourth grade year.

Prior to moving to South Texas, I would say fourth grade was the most traumatic school year for me.

Let’s start out with my mother (not blaming, just saying) who failed to re-enroll me after we were booted because we were not living in the correct area of town the previous year. So, we get to school on the first day – there was no meet the teacher the week before back in the day- we searched the lists by each classroom door and could not find my name anywhere. I so wanted Ms Peterson. My sister had her three years before and I thought she was awesome. Also, I thought it would be a good thing to have at least one teacher that knew my sister-she was liked by many, so maybe I could ride on her coat tail. This never happened it especially didn’t happen in the fourth grade.

I wound up in Ms Moss’ fourth grade class. This woman had to have been counting the day to retirement because you could tell from day one that she was fed up with all of us fourth graders. She was a whole different type of mean then what I had experienced when dealing with the awful third grade teacher I had. I really can’t even tell you today which one scared me more.  

Little back story- I know it is probably hard for you to realize, but I was practically mute when I was in elementary school. I did not speak unless spoken to and I never, ever got into trouble. See…my daughter does not get everything from me. Every principle, every teacher even every assistant teacher scared the pee out of me. To my mother’s disappointment, this feeling ended as soon as I got into Junior High.

My fear was evident when my teacher asked me to go to the office to call my father. I cried all the way to office, I cried through the phone call and all the way back to class. My teacher then asked me to follow her into the hall. She could not understand why I was crying. All she did was ask me to call my father so he could remember to buy me notebook paper – read the paragraph above again – I was scared of everyone. And NEVER in my all time in school had a set foot in the principal’s office. I was heart broken and a little over dramatic – which Shelby does get from me.

In the fourth grade I had the awful task of learning my multiplication tables – this is true torture. I did make some wonderful friends – who I still embarrass years later with the lovely class picture above. Unfortunately, my teach was not present for our class picture, but don’t worry her face is etched into my mind forever.

Now, as I grow older, I realize she wasn’t really as old as I thought she was and I fully understand how a class of crazy kids could irritate her. I also learned multiplication is easy – I hope Shelby learns this too.