March 1, 2007

English

Newly Recognized?

I was an average little girl. I was innocent and I was naughty. Sometimes, I would seem so innocent and next, an annoying little brat. I remember playing tag, kickball, basketball, and riding the tricycle with my friends. I aged as 5 years old children would; but at that time, I had reason to believe that I was being bullied; by my teacher.

My kindergarten teacher had always recognized me as a troublemaker. I don’t know what it was, but every time I would make a mistake in class, on an assignment or anything at all, I knew I’d be in trouble. One time, she asked me a question as the whole class was seated on the stone-gray carpet. I guess I had answered incorrectly because she had sent me to be seated in the corner for a good old-fashioned “time-out.”

I wasn’t as nearly as bad as she made me out to be though. The other kids were never in trouble. They were never scolded or screamed at, even ifthey should be. I had always believed that she didn’t like me but sometimes, it felt as if she just hated me.

I sat at my assigned seat at my assigned table, near the teacher’s desk. There were also a couple students that sat with me at the table too. I remember 5. We would share our crayons and pencils in the baskets that were in the middle. Sometimes, I would have to sit in the trouble seat; which was right next to the teacher’s desk.

My teacher assigned us an in-class assignment. We were learning about our senses. After explaining to us about the different kinds of senses, she assigned each table a sense. We were supposed to draw a picture relating to that sense and write a sentence about the picture, one on each side of the paper. My table was assigned the sense of smell.

I knew exactly what I wanted to draw and write at the moment she assigned the sense to us, so I hurriedly grabbed a yellow, red, and black crayon. Using the black crayon, I created an oval (which was stretched horizontally), a wide U shape under the oval, and then I drew a rectangle under that U. That picture resulted in a shape of a bowl. I repeated the same steps onto the back of the piece of paper for my second picture. I flipped my paper back to the first bowl and I picked out my yellow crayon and started to make the shapes of 3 leaf clovers. Under that bowl, I wrote, “I smell popcorn.” I flipped my paper over and picked up my red crayon. I made little apple shapes and put a long stem on each of them. Under that bowl, I wrote, “I smell cherries.” I was completely satisfied with my work. When I looked around the classroom, I discovered that no one had finished with his or her assignment yet. I raised my hand to signal that my work was done.

My teacher came over and I handed her my paper. I had pointed at the bowl of popcorn and announced, “I smell popcorn.” Then I flipped the paper over to reveal the bowl of cherries and voiced an “I smell cherries.” I don’t know what had surprised me more; the fact that before she even looked at the paper she was about to scream at me or the fact that she exclaimed, “Good Job!” and told me to get a piece of candy from her candy jar. It made me feel special for once in that year.

One of the girls at my table heard this conversation and looked at me in envy. I looked at her paper and it had a mess of brown on it, but I could make out a picture of a girl. I took out a puzzle and sat in the middle of the carpet. When I poured the puzzle pieces out, I looked up and saw many students looking at me in wonder. I just stared right back at them and shrugged.

You would think that after that scenario, she would’ve treated me better, seeing as she had to give me some credit for doing something right, but she didn’t. On graduation day, she wanted hugs and kisses from everyone and she’d give them back. Her hugs and kisses were the candy kind, not the physical. On that day, I was “bad,” so I didn’t get any candies from her. I just got a certificate while everyone else had both chocolate and certificate.

I realized that I probably deserved some of the punishments she gave me but not all of them. She was unfair to me and I should’ve gotten a “Congratulations” or a “ Nice Work” here and there, but all I got was a “Good Job.” I cherish that compliment from this day on because that I was the only compliment that I had gotten from her.