Na Na Na Boo Boo: Tales From the Playground

At thirteen, I'd been demoted to the lowest ability English class. I still don't remember why. And in my first 'lesson', sitting up front next to this big old blob of a boy called Ian Chatterton, I spent the first twenty minutes trying to explain to him, in words of no more than one syllable, 'live' and 'live' are spelt the same but mean different things. He still didn't get it and accused me of tricking him. He even called on the teacher, who then accused me of trying to confuse the poor lad.

Still, least I've moved on through that particular episode with no ill effects.

Bastards.

dahlfan said:

In the second grade, I was sitting on the bench reading during recess instead of playing with the other kids, and one of the supervisor parent volunteers came up to me, and said reading helps people lose weight. I didn't understand sarcasm then, so I believed her. But looking back, it's more than clear that she was subtely attacking my chubbiness because rather than play, and work off a sweat I was choosing to read Nancy Drew.

Click to expand...

And this was a parent?! Huh. I guess the sorry state of the youth of today isn't such a surprise after all.

I will forever resent my third grade teacher, who decided it would be a great idea to pair the brightest, nerdiest, most socially retarded kid in class (me) with the dumbest, meanest bully... to teach him how to read.

I think she might have harbored a secret death wish for me or something.

in 6th grade we were assigned to do a book report each week. in 1 week I read and wrote a report about the hobbit. The kid next to me came in the day the report was due, said "uh oh I forgot". he made up a book and got an A.. I got a B.... from then on I made up books and chose the authors by pulling a baseball card out of my scrubs pile. I think Oscar Gamble's work Caught in a Spiderweb and Bert Blyleven's Long Winter both got me A's.

latter he vandalized an electrical sub station shutting off a great swath of power on the east coast and robbed the ice cream store he was fired from leading the police on a multi county chase. he is probably a famous author now..

We were doing stupid reading worksheets in first grade. I was sitting in the front row next to Will Mansard (this was to be my first of many unpleasant run-ins with him). He said to me "What's F-U-C-K spell?" I told him, naturally, and his hand shot up and he cried out "Teacher! Sarah said the F-word!" The teacher gave me a lecture about how that was really bad and we don't say that word and how could I do such a thing and if I did it again there would be Consequences. Meanwhile I was totally baffled. The other hilarious thing is that I came home and told my mom what happened, and then I said to her, "It's not really fair. I don't even know what that word means! What does it mean?" and, I'll never forget this, she replied, "I don't know either."

At some point in grade school my mother got put into full-on special ed. Reason: she couldn't read aloud so her teacher assumed she couldn't read at all. No one bothered to ask any reading comprehension questions. She's super dyslexic but she can actually read. My grandma sorted things out after a few weeks and got her back into a regular ed class, and my mom went on to graduate high school at 16 and go to college

In first grade one of my friends wound up in special ed class because he couldn't sit still long enough to fill out a worksheet or cut out a hand turkey. Then the students were supposed to read a book at home and bring it in to talk about it. He got into trouble for lying because he said he read 'The Fellowship of the Ring'. He got back out of trouble when they realized that he actually had read it and knew what it was about. Then they let him back into regular ed.

I remember a time in science class where we played a "Last One Standing" game. All the students stood around the sides of the room, and the teacher asked a question. If you answered wrong, you took your seat. The last student standing would win the game. At a point where slightly more than half of us were left standing, the teacher asked "Exactly how many days were there in on year?"
I know this, I thought, but the student whose turn it was, was on the other side of the room.
It would never get to me, I thought. They began answering 12, said the first student, thinking he meant months, I suppose. Down she went.
52, another said.
250.
300.
360, a bankers son answered.
They were falling like cornstalks before a thresher. I was getting excited. I knew about the 1/4 day, and thus far, no one had even come close to the correct answer.
365, one of the smartest girls said. NO! said the teacher, baffling the rest of the class, except me.
One boy to go, would he figure it out?
365 and 366 on leap years, he said. Sit down said the teacher.
I was ready, biting my tongue to keep from babbling it out. OK, Robert, I can see that you know the answer. Tell us exactly how many days are there in a year.
366 and a quarter, I said, then immediately realized my mistake. No! no, I mean--
No, say nothing, Robert. Sit down, we must take your first answer.
The snot-nosed kid next to me, who had no clue until he heard my answer, said, 365 and a quarter.
As it worked out, he was eliminated in the next round, but I hated myself for the rest of the day, for that mistake.

In elementary school, whenever I finished a worksheet in class, I'd pull out my book and read until the class started up again the teacher managed to get my attention. This came up at more than one parent-teacher conference: "I'm so glad Sarah enjoys reading, but . . . "

My mother would sigh and explain to me again that there was a time and a place to read for pleasure, etc. etc. My mother claims that this is when I began reading while walking from place to place--to catch up on the reading time I was "losing" at school.

At my daughter's first parent-teacher conference last year, her kindergarten teacher told us that whenever my daughter finished up a project, she would sneak back to the library corner, grab a book, and read it under the table until she was discovered (usually when she failed to respond to a question or notice when the rest of the class left for lunch). She had also started to walk out of the classroom while reading her selection, which needed to be checked out first.

Her teacher said, "I'm so glad Sammie enjoys reading, but--" and had to wait while I stopped laughing.

I'm sure that at that very moment, my former elementary school teachers and my mother were overcome with an inexplicable sense that there is indeed justice in this world.

Kitty Pryde's response reminded me about when I was in third grade, I used to play teacher to some of the younger kids at my daycare. I was teaching this one girl how to read and would send progress reports home with her each day for her parents. I guess one day, this girl had a bad case of potty mouth, and I sent a note home with her spelling out all the cuss words she'd said.

The next day I got in trouble, which just dumbfounded me, because she was the one who'd said those words, not me!

Nicole

I made a choose your own adventure story about Star Trek, and it was made out of that slideshow program from the old macs, where you can make buttons to go to different slides, and you can have wash effects and stuff. I did that. I made like 10 story lines and different fades and washes and buttons and slides, drew them all, made the text.

My friend stole the idea right from under me and made a game about math problems. The teacher let him make his game while everyone else in the class did multiplication tables.

I made a plan with some others to give him a swirly (though I hardly knew what one was). Of course I didn't. But maybe I should have had my lawyer sue for copyright infringement? That is, if lawyers took foreign currency (white dollars with the monopoly man on them)