It's been a minute since I've written for this age group and I remember in KY, when I brought my writing from 5th grade to the teachers I worked with, they said, "Crandall, this is not what normal 5th graders could do." I saved all my writing from Mr. Finster's class.
Working with the kids this week helps me to see this. For many, getting a sentence onto the page is difficult. Being able to read that sentence is even harder. When you ask them to read it to you, they go on and on as if they are reading several pages. It's in their head, but they don't know how to get it to paper (and it's probably because it takes work). I think this is why I always reflect on Mr. Finster's class as the one in my K-12 experience that made the biggest difference. He had high standards and he loved his students.
I continue to hope the same for my own classrooms.
Not Such a Stupid Gift After All
In fifth grade, I learn to bite my bottom lip. I think this is what you’re supposed to when you’re acting like you’re a better person than you really are. In 4th grade, we learned about pilgrims and practiced are cursive handwriting, but by 5th grade it was the last year of elementary school. Next year would be middle school and kids in my class were already becoming punks.
I’ve always been a good student. I entered kindergarten reading because Big Bird and Sesame Street taught me how. By 1st grade I read as a 5th grader, so school was kind of easy. But in 5th grade, I had Mr. Finster. He was a hard teacher. He challenged us, especially with his mathematical torture chamber. He was also in a wheelchair because he had multiple sclerosis. During torture time, he challenged all of us to stand by ourselves as he shouted out times table questions: 4 x 9, 3x3, 2 x10, and he would go faster, and faster, and faster. If you got one wrong, he drove his wheelchair into your shins. If you go it right, he backed up. I was the 1st 5th grader to succeed in his torture chamber that year and he rolled over to me and hugged my hips to congratulate me. Because of his illness, he also has little control of his smile, so when he did, sometimes drool would come from the corner of his mouth. I guess I am proud that I made him drip spit because I passed the chamber.
Mr. Finster also made us turn in a new piece of writing every Friday. In fact, he gave us the challenge of writing about how to drive a teacher crazy in 24-hours or less. I thought that was fun. The local library was having a contest for the best essay, so I decided I’d take the one I wrote about putting tacks on Mr. Finster’s wheelchair into the mix. I didn’t win, though. Why? Because my neighbor Michelle had a panic attack about writing an essay, so my mom made me help her. She read my essay and copied it. She won the contest, and I was so mad.
Actually, I was mad at Andy and Carmen, too. We were 5th graders and every year, the 5th grade class got the best parts in the holiday concert. I wanted a solo and I did my best to sing better than everyone else. Andy got it. Being a good sport, I decided it was okay and I’d try out to play Frosty the Snowman. I was good at being pudgy, so why not be pudgy in all white. I danced and danced and thought I was better than everyone else. Nope. Carmen was.
I was fine with it. I was still in the back-up chorus.
It was weird, though. A week after the concert before we got out of school for the break, Ms. Shakow, the music teacher, asked me to come buy my room. I thought I was in trouble, but she wanted me to have a gift. I opened it and it was a singing angel boy with a candle (the candle was broken, and I imagined she was recycling some junky gift someone gave her). I thought it was nice, though. She said something about how I deserved this gift angel, being that Andy’s mom was another 5th grade teacher at the school like Mr. Finster, and Carmen’s mom was a building substitute who covered her classes for a while. An angel.
Many years later, when I became a teacher, I thought about that gift…not only the one given to me by Mr. Finster because he made his class difficult and, as a result, challenged me, but because of Ms. Shakow and that angel candle. I always thought it was a weird gift that came out of nowhere, but as I got older, I realized she gave me a bigger lesson on how the world sometimes works. Teachers have to be many things to many people, and what goes down in any moment might not be the whole picture.
I’m glad I bit my lip. I think that is why the angel came to me.
