Oct. 24, 2007 - 21:59 MDT

ACCEPTING CHANGE

Through elementary school there was a feeling of security for me. Same teacher, same room, just the subject matter changing by the hour. Next year a different room and a new teacher, it was easy for me to become acclimated to that.

Then came the frighful Junior High School. Home room where the day started. Never got used to that even in high school. Trying to find my way in a strange building to a different room each hour, often on a different floor.

And a different teacher each period took some getting used to also.

At first it was frightening for this kid, but seeing schoolmates from our elementary school in some of my classes helped.

But it seemed such a hustle all the time. And there was no stretching a period like it happened in elementary. At times on a subject, a teacher would go beyond her time because we were so deeply into things, and there was no bell to end the period, other things were touched upon -- just not as long that day.

We were told that this was preparation for the real world, but in a way I doubted that. From what I knew a man went to work every day, same job, same position, worked at his station (? whatever it was called) ate his lunch and back to the same spot for the rest of the work day. At least that was the way things seemed to me.

And then I discovered to my amazement that all teachers weren't the same. My lady Latin teacher apparently didn't like boys. There wasn't a one of us boys who got a passing grade. Other teachers were grouches who seemed to feel they were serving a sentence in a jail. Now and then a teacher would make it quite plain to us that that teacher just didn't like people and kids less.

Of course that made the gold of a good teacher so much more lustrous.

Of times I will be dreaming of sitting in Mrs. Gray's class in first grade doing the push-pull penmanship exercises, only thing on my mind would be striving to make them perfect. Elementary school classes are in my nicest dreams, what great people our teachers were. Dreams of Junior High School vary, from lovely dreams where I am finding out the secrets of the world from a great teacher to nightmares from the ego busting types that some of us had.

I guess that over the years it did harden us enough to be able to navigate in an adult world, but it was so hard at the beginning, this ACCEPTING CHANGE . . . . . . . . . . .

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