One thing I will say that pretty much characterizes my brother Loyd: He HATED being the youngest of us two. He could not stand that I got to do things before he did, including going to school. He did not like being left all by himself with the babysitter while I was in class.
I would like to note that Loyd got to do a lot of things that I didn't get to do at that age. He got to go to actual Kindergarten. Because he was in Kindergarten at a church, a photo of the class was featured on a brochure promoting the Kindergarten program there. I got really envious when I saw him and his classmates on that brochure. I guess I felt that other people would see the brochure and think those kids were really special. I wanted people to think I was special.
In addition, Loyd got to "graduate" from Kindergarten. The ceremony involved the students doing presentations and receiving their "diplomas." I never got to graduate from anything until I finished high school. (That's right, I didn't even graduate from junior high school, but that's another story.)
When I was about to start fourth grade, Loyd was getting ready for the first grade. However, he didn't like the idea of being so far behind me. He was 2 1/2 years younger than me, but 3 years behind in school. He told Mom and Dad that he didn't want to go to first grade. He wanted to go to third grade. Mom and Dad responded by saying something like, "Okay, we'll see what we can do." A part of me knew that they were just patronizing him and that he was going to have to go to first grade like everyone else. However, I started going through a range of emotions. I was angry because no one offered this option to me when I was going to school and it kind of looked like Mom and Dad were actually going to do something to make it happen for Loyd. I then started experiencing anxiety at the idea of Loyd being just one year behind me in school. I couldn't stand the thought of him almost always being at the same school I went to.
Fortunately, Loyd went to first grade and the issue was never brought up again. My father told me years later that Loyd got angry after the first day of school because, from his perspective, I went to school the first day and I came home knowing how to read. Loyd was expecting to also know how to read his first day at school and didn't get that accomplished. (As I mentioned before, I knew how to read long before starting first grade.)
Tomorrow, I will post a YouTube video that demonstrates what probably made Loyd a lot more frustrated about being the youngest.
Monday, October 14, 2013
Friday, October 11, 2013
Unfairness at the Pinewood Derby
When I was in the third grade, I got to join the Cub Scouts. I had a lot of fun and got to take part in a lot of activities, but there is one thing that bothered me all three years I was in it. That is the Pinewood Derby.
Now, I'm not talking about how the scouts' fathers do all the work on the cars. I mean, my father did almost all the work on my cars because he didn't trust me with power tools at that age. No, my issue was the method used to determine the winner. I don't know how the rest of the country did it, but in my town, it was a Double Elimination tournament.
In this method, everyone is paired up with one other competitor in the first round. Those who win go to the second round. Those winners go to the third round and so on until you have one person who has won every round in the first half. Anybody who loses at any point during the first half has to wait until the second half to race again.
So, in the second half, everybody who lost is paired up again with one of the other losing competitors from the first round and the process starts all over again until a winner is declared for the second half, who then goes up against the winner of the first half.
My problem was that if you lose in the first round, you have to wait until the second half before you could race again. This could take more than an hour. If you lose in the first round of the second half, then you don't get to race again and you are forced to sit through the rest of the tournament to see who won.
This happened to me the first two years I participated. There were about 100 scouts taking part in the competition each year. This means that 25 scouts, a full fourth of the boys there, only got to race their cars twice. What fun was that?
Now, I don't know if the gameplay has changed since then, but it appears they could have come up with a better system of determining a winner by having everyone participate in an equal number of races before final rounds. I have noticed pictures of some tracks that can handle four cars at one time. I hope that contributes to scouts being able to race a few more times.
In the third grade, I designed the car myself. I drew the line on the block of wood and my father cut it out. He placed a ballast inside the body of the car and slapped it together with glue. When we went to the practice, my car exceeded the weight limit, so my father had to take some of the ballast out. When we took the car to be weighed at the event, the judge shook his head. My car was very much UNDER the limit and there was no way we could make any adjustment to it. I lost my two races.
In the fourth grade, I had seen a picture of a Pinewood Derby car shaped like a banana, with the stem pointing up. I wanted to make a car like that. At the last Derby, my dad had talked to other fathers and learned that we needed to make the car more aerodynamic. He went nuts trying to design the car to look like a banana and be aerodynamic. It did not have a stem. Well, it didn't work. I still lost my first two races.
In the fifth grade, I was in Webelos. This year, my dad took complete control of the car design and building. He was determined to have me win at least one race. It actually worked. I won enough times that I came in 9th place. It would have really stunk if I only got to be in two races again.
I don't think winning at all costs would have been that much of an issue if they had a method in place to allow the boys to be involved in more races. This might allow the scouts to be more involved. We could have fun and learn something without always having to win. That should always be the main consideration.
Now, I'm not talking about how the scouts' fathers do all the work on the cars. I mean, my father did almost all the work on my cars because he didn't trust me with power tools at that age. No, my issue was the method used to determine the winner. I don't know how the rest of the country did it, but in my town, it was a Double Elimination tournament.
In this method, everyone is paired up with one other competitor in the first round. Those who win go to the second round. Those winners go to the third round and so on until you have one person who has won every round in the first half. Anybody who loses at any point during the first half has to wait until the second half to race again.
So, in the second half, everybody who lost is paired up again with one of the other losing competitors from the first round and the process starts all over again until a winner is declared for the second half, who then goes up against the winner of the first half.
My problem was that if you lose in the first round, you have to wait until the second half before you could race again. This could take more than an hour. If you lose in the first round of the second half, then you don't get to race again and you are forced to sit through the rest of the tournament to see who won.
This happened to me the first two years I participated. There were about 100 scouts taking part in the competition each year. This means that 25 scouts, a full fourth of the boys there, only got to race their cars twice. What fun was that?
Now, I don't know if the gameplay has changed since then, but it appears they could have come up with a better system of determining a winner by having everyone participate in an equal number of races before final rounds. I have noticed pictures of some tracks that can handle four cars at one time. I hope that contributes to scouts being able to race a few more times.
In the third grade, I designed the car myself. I drew the line on the block of wood and my father cut it out. He placed a ballast inside the body of the car and slapped it together with glue. When we went to the practice, my car exceeded the weight limit, so my father had to take some of the ballast out. When we took the car to be weighed at the event, the judge shook his head. My car was very much UNDER the limit and there was no way we could make any adjustment to it. I lost my two races.
In the fourth grade, I had seen a picture of a Pinewood Derby car shaped like a banana, with the stem pointing up. I wanted to make a car like that. At the last Derby, my dad had talked to other fathers and learned that we needed to make the car more aerodynamic. He went nuts trying to design the car to look like a banana and be aerodynamic. It did not have a stem. Well, it didn't work. I still lost my first two races.
In the fifth grade, I was in Webelos. This year, my dad took complete control of the car design and building. He was determined to have me win at least one race. It actually worked. I won enough times that I came in 9th place. It would have really stunk if I only got to be in two races again.
I don't think winning at all costs would have been that much of an issue if they had a method in place to allow the boys to be involved in more races. This might allow the scouts to be more involved. We could have fun and learn something without always having to win. That should always be the main consideration.
Friday Follies
You were probably already expecting this from a few weeks ago (because I posted a "Part One"), but I obviously didn't get all the yelling out of my system.
And I know the driver didn't see or hear me. It's too bad they don't have audio on Street View.
And I know the driver didn't see or hear me. It's too bad they don't have audio on Street View.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Issues with manners and sharing
Right now, I would like to dispel the myth that it's a good thing to grow up with a brother or sister because you learn how to share as a child. Whoever says this has never had to deal with my brother Loyd.
There was a lot of stuff that I did not get to learn during my early years. My parents never taught me table manners or to say "please" or "thank you." It seemed like my parents decided to teach my brother and me these very important lessons at the same time. I used to think that it would have made more sense to teach me these things first so that I could set a good example for Loyd. At the time, it seemed bewildering that we were getting subjected to these new rules without any actual cause. Prior to writing this blog, I figured out that Mom and Dad really had their hands full with Loyd in dealing with his constant crying and screaming that they just didn't think about teaching me this stuff first. They say that once Loyd learned how to talk, he stopped crying and screaming. I guess when that happened, they finally had some room to teach us some important things about life.
I do want to mention the day that my mom decided we had to learn how to ask for permission to be excused from the table. There were a lot of words I didn't know at the time and "excuse" was one of them. At dinner, out of the blue, she said we needed to ask, "May I please be excused" before leaving the table. On a later date, she served all food I couldn't stand to eat. I immediately said, "May I please be excused?" Boy, she got mad.
As for sharing, apparently, my brother didn't like doing it. Loyd seemed to use these main rules for sharing:
1. Take all you want until someone tells you to stop.
2. If no one sees you eating it or playing with it, you don't have to share it.
3. When you're in a situation in which you have to share, try to delay releasing the item or items as long as possible. Maybe everyone else will forget you were supposed to share.
4. Don't wait for someone to offer to share something with you. Put them on the spot and ask them if you can have some.
This is something I don't really remember, but I had been reminded of it by my mother. It must have happened when I was five years old. Even though my first real memory was around the Christmas season that year, I do not recall this incident. My mother and father had these friends they knew through teaching. They treated us like family. For Christmas, they gave Loyd and me two presents. They apparently tried to communicate that these gifts were for both of us and we were supposed to share them. However, they were unaware that neither one of us knew the meaning of the word "share." Loyd opened his package. It was a transistor radio. I opened mine. It was a book of Bible stories. I was told I appeared very disappointed. Again, they tried to stress that both gifts were for both of us and we were to share them. Lloyd was two at the time and the words were not getting through to him. He never let go of that radio and took it everywhere with him.
A few years later, we came across that radio again when we were moving from the country to Artesia. My father said we had gotten it years ago, but didn't tell the full story of who gave it to us. I didn't remember the incident at the time and wasn't told about it until I was in my 30's.
In a separate incident, my mother decided to split a Butterfinger bar between us. If you've ever had any experience with Butterfinger bars, you know that they are not like Hershey bars, which can be broken off into segments. Butterfingers will never break exactly in half, and any attempts to break them that way just result in a lot of little pieces flying all over the place. Add that you can almost never find a Butterfinger in a wrapper that isn't already broken and you have the most unsharable candy in the universe.
Well, my mother broke the Butterfinger and tried very hard to make sure that Loyd and I had exactly the same amount. She didn't pull out a scale or anything, but she separated all the various bits into two piles and put them in front of us at the dining room table. We started eating them. Among the little pieces on my side was this big chunk. Keep in mind that my unshattered part of the bar was shorter than his and this helped to make up for it. I was saving that big chunk for last after I finished eating all the little pieces. Well, Loyd decided that all his shattered pieces were too small and actually reached across the table to try to grab that big chunk. I was able to keep him from getting it. I always wonder why we only had one Butterfinger to share. Getting us separate candy bars would have saved us a lot of trouble.
I have another amusing story regarding sharing with my brother that I posted on my A Liberal Christian YouTube channel. Here is the link: "A Liberal Christian vs. Colonel Sanders."
Now, this whole battle over sharing had a lingering affect on me. I did not "learn" to share. What I learned was that sharing is not an option. I was required to share. When I started going to college and entering my adult life, I was very selfish. If I had a bag of candy, I wouldn't offer any to anyone who happened to be around. If I went to a restaurant, I would not leave a tip. I didn't start leaving tips until I was 25 years old. Fortunately, none of the wait staff that served me ever hassled me about it.
There was a lot of stuff that I did not get to learn during my early years. My parents never taught me table manners or to say "please" or "thank you." It seemed like my parents decided to teach my brother and me these very important lessons at the same time. I used to think that it would have made more sense to teach me these things first so that I could set a good example for Loyd. At the time, it seemed bewildering that we were getting subjected to these new rules without any actual cause. Prior to writing this blog, I figured out that Mom and Dad really had their hands full with Loyd in dealing with his constant crying and screaming that they just didn't think about teaching me this stuff first. They say that once Loyd learned how to talk, he stopped crying and screaming. I guess when that happened, they finally had some room to teach us some important things about life.
I do want to mention the day that my mom decided we had to learn how to ask for permission to be excused from the table. There were a lot of words I didn't know at the time and "excuse" was one of them. At dinner, out of the blue, she said we needed to ask, "May I please be excused" before leaving the table. On a later date, she served all food I couldn't stand to eat. I immediately said, "May I please be excused?" Boy, she got mad.
As for sharing, apparently, my brother didn't like doing it. Loyd seemed to use these main rules for sharing:
1. Take all you want until someone tells you to stop.
2. If no one sees you eating it or playing with it, you don't have to share it.
3. When you're in a situation in which you have to share, try to delay releasing the item or items as long as possible. Maybe everyone else will forget you were supposed to share.
4. Don't wait for someone to offer to share something with you. Put them on the spot and ask them if you can have some.
This is something I don't really remember, but I had been reminded of it by my mother. It must have happened when I was five years old. Even though my first real memory was around the Christmas season that year, I do not recall this incident. My mother and father had these friends they knew through teaching. They treated us like family. For Christmas, they gave Loyd and me two presents. They apparently tried to communicate that these gifts were for both of us and we were supposed to share them. However, they were unaware that neither one of us knew the meaning of the word "share." Loyd opened his package. It was a transistor radio. I opened mine. It was a book of Bible stories. I was told I appeared very disappointed. Again, they tried to stress that both gifts were for both of us and we were to share them. Lloyd was two at the time and the words were not getting through to him. He never let go of that radio and took it everywhere with him.
A few years later, we came across that radio again when we were moving from the country to Artesia. My father said we had gotten it years ago, but didn't tell the full story of who gave it to us. I didn't remember the incident at the time and wasn't told about it until I was in my 30's.
In a separate incident, my mother decided to split a Butterfinger bar between us. If you've ever had any experience with Butterfinger bars, you know that they are not like Hershey bars, which can be broken off into segments. Butterfingers will never break exactly in half, and any attempts to break them that way just result in a lot of little pieces flying all over the place. Add that you can almost never find a Butterfinger in a wrapper that isn't already broken and you have the most unsharable candy in the universe.
Well, my mother broke the Butterfinger and tried very hard to make sure that Loyd and I had exactly the same amount. She didn't pull out a scale or anything, but she separated all the various bits into two piles and put them in front of us at the dining room table. We started eating them. Among the little pieces on my side was this big chunk. Keep in mind that my unshattered part of the bar was shorter than his and this helped to make up for it. I was saving that big chunk for last after I finished eating all the little pieces. Well, Loyd decided that all his shattered pieces were too small and actually reached across the table to try to grab that big chunk. I was able to keep him from getting it. I always wonder why we only had one Butterfinger to share. Getting us separate candy bars would have saved us a lot of trouble.
I have another amusing story regarding sharing with my brother that I posted on my A Liberal Christian YouTube channel. Here is the link: "A Liberal Christian vs. Colonel Sanders."
Now, this whole battle over sharing had a lingering affect on me. I did not "learn" to share. What I learned was that sharing is not an option. I was required to share. When I started going to college and entering my adult life, I was very selfish. If I had a bag of candy, I wouldn't offer any to anyone who happened to be around. If I went to a restaurant, I would not leave a tip. I didn't start leaving tips until I was 25 years old. Fortunately, none of the wait staff that served me ever hassled me about it.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
A little about Aunt Mard
Up to this point, I really haven't gotten into a lot of detail about my dealings with my aunts and uncles. They rarely had that much impact on my life. They were generally just these people my parents would take us to see every once in a while.
I need to tell you about my mother's sister Mard. Mard was one year older than my mother. Mard had some problems that were not apparent to me when I was growing up and no one told me there was anything wrong with her.. Later on, she would be described to me as "somewhat retarded."
It may not have been actual retardation, but some sort of neurological disorder. Mard was really good at English and spelling, but she was terrible at math. Because she could not comprehend math, she stayed in high school two years longer than usual. This meant that for one year, my mother and Mard were in the same grade. My mother graduated from high school, but Mard had to continue going back the next year.
Mard got tormented quite a bit at school. The tormenting got worse after my mother went to college. Mard came home from school one day in tears. Grandma Bend told her she didn't have to go to school any more, and she didn't.
When I was a kid, the general understanding was that if an adult told you to do something, you were to do it, no questions asked. One snowy day in Fort Sumner, Mard saw Loyd and I sitting around the house. She said, "You kids need to be outside playing. Put your jackets on and go outside."
Loyd and I did what she said and went outside. Dad was out there working on something. He sees us and asks, "What are you doing out here?"
"Mard told us to come out here."
He started getting angry. "You two get back in the house, right now!"
We went inside. Dad went up to Mard and started yelling at her. "THESE BOYS ARE SICK! THEY ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO GO OUTSIDE! YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS TELLING THEM WHAT TO DO!" It was the first time I ever saw Dad yell at someone who wasn't Loyd, Mom, or me. And I thought for certain that he had plenty more yelling left in him and he was going to start on Loyd and me. But he didn't. At this point, I somewhat realized that there might have been something wrong with Mard.
Mard eventually got married to this guy named Hed. Hed was of at least average intelligence, but he wasn't able to drive a car. He had a hard time holding on to a job. No one in the family really liked him except for Mard. Mard lived on disability. My Dad always said that Hed just sponged off of Mard. However, I'm pretty certain that Mard always longed for a near-normal life, and if she was ever going to find someone to love her, this was going to be it.
One day, toward the end of the school year, we were told we were going to see Mard and Hed graduate from college. I thought that this was quite an accomplishment. We drove up to Roswell, where Eastern New Mexico University had a satellite campus. We went to the area where the ceremony took place. Mard and Hed were the only ones who received degrees. I thought this was rather odd, especially considering that most of the other people in the room kind of appeared to be "off" somewhat. Just three months ago, I found out that she and Hed had actually graduated from Job Corps.
Mard and Hed never had children. They remained married for 22 years, until 12/31/96, when Mard was struck by a vehicle while she was trying to cross the street.
I felt really bad because I hadn't really kept in touch with Mard after I grew up and knew that things weren't right with her and Hed. It was even worse because she had called my Mom's house at Christmas while I was there and I was in a rush to hand to phone off to someone else. I never knew that would be the last time I would hear her voice.
One interesting aspect of the relationship Loyd and I had with Mard is that we saw so much of her while we were growing up. Since she lived with Grandma Bend most of the time, she was always there at the house when we were there. The other cousins on my Mom's side of the family did not get to know her anywhere near as well as we did. I do wonder what their impressions of Mard are.
I need to tell you about my mother's sister Mard. Mard was one year older than my mother. Mard had some problems that were not apparent to me when I was growing up and no one told me there was anything wrong with her.. Later on, she would be described to me as "somewhat retarded."
It may not have been actual retardation, but some sort of neurological disorder. Mard was really good at English and spelling, but she was terrible at math. Because she could not comprehend math, she stayed in high school two years longer than usual. This meant that for one year, my mother and Mard were in the same grade. My mother graduated from high school, but Mard had to continue going back the next year.
Mard got tormented quite a bit at school. The tormenting got worse after my mother went to college. Mard came home from school one day in tears. Grandma Bend told her she didn't have to go to school any more, and she didn't.
When I was a kid, the general understanding was that if an adult told you to do something, you were to do it, no questions asked. One snowy day in Fort Sumner, Mard saw Loyd and I sitting around the house. She said, "You kids need to be outside playing. Put your jackets on and go outside."
Loyd and I did what she said and went outside. Dad was out there working on something. He sees us and asks, "What are you doing out here?"
"Mard told us to come out here."
He started getting angry. "You two get back in the house, right now!"
We went inside. Dad went up to Mard and started yelling at her. "THESE BOYS ARE SICK! THEY ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO GO OUTSIDE! YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS TELLING THEM WHAT TO DO!" It was the first time I ever saw Dad yell at someone who wasn't Loyd, Mom, or me. And I thought for certain that he had plenty more yelling left in him and he was going to start on Loyd and me. But he didn't. At this point, I somewhat realized that there might have been something wrong with Mard.
Mard eventually got married to this guy named Hed. Hed was of at least average intelligence, but he wasn't able to drive a car. He had a hard time holding on to a job. No one in the family really liked him except for Mard. Mard lived on disability. My Dad always said that Hed just sponged off of Mard. However, I'm pretty certain that Mard always longed for a near-normal life, and if she was ever going to find someone to love her, this was going to be it.
One day, toward the end of the school year, we were told we were going to see Mard and Hed graduate from college. I thought that this was quite an accomplishment. We drove up to Roswell, where Eastern New Mexico University had a satellite campus. We went to the area where the ceremony took place. Mard and Hed were the only ones who received degrees. I thought this was rather odd, especially considering that most of the other people in the room kind of appeared to be "off" somewhat. Just three months ago, I found out that she and Hed had actually graduated from Job Corps.
Mard and Hed never had children. They remained married for 22 years, until 12/31/96, when Mard was struck by a vehicle while she was trying to cross the street.
I felt really bad because I hadn't really kept in touch with Mard after I grew up and knew that things weren't right with her and Hed. It was even worse because she had called my Mom's house at Christmas while I was there and I was in a rush to hand to phone off to someone else. I never knew that would be the last time I would hear her voice.
One interesting aspect of the relationship Loyd and I had with Mard is that we saw so much of her while we were growing up. Since she lived with Grandma Bend most of the time, she was always there at the house when we were there. The other cousins on my Mom's side of the family did not get to know her anywhere near as well as we did. I do wonder what their impressions of Mard are.
I was still a loser in Little League
Unfortunately, the torture that I had to endure for not being able to play baseball didn't end the summer after I finished first grade.
It's not like my brother was forced to watch me practice for the plays I did in high school.
It's not like my brother was forced to watch me practice for the plays I did in high school.
Monday, October 7, 2013
The 2nd and 3rd grades
Okay, I got the first year of real school out of the way. It was time to start second grade. The first day of school, I walked past my first grade classroom. There was a line of kids waiting to go inside. In that line, I saw someone who was in my first grade class the year before. He had been left back. He looked at me and rolled his eyes. I could tell he didn't want to do the first grade all over again.
When I was in the first grade, one of the first things they taught us was math. We learned stuff like 1+1=2, 1+2=3 and so on. On the first day of second grade, we learned 1+1=2, 1+2=3. What? We learned this last year! Why aren't we learning something new? My father said it's because too many students forget too much stuff during the summer and a review is in order for the first few days of the school year. Well, if that's the case, why did that one guy have to do the first grade all over? Why isn't there some sort of test we can take for those of us who remember everything we learned so we can go on to the next grade?
So, aside from that, second grade was fairly uneventful. It was almost the same as first grade, but we had to stay in class an extra half-hour. I'm just going to move on to third grade.
In third grade, we finally got to do some more advanced stuff. For starters, we learned cursive writing. I will tell you that my cursive writing is absolutely terrible. I always got bad marks because of my handwriting. The teacher kept screaming at me to make the letters like they do in the book. When I got older, I heard it explained that the smarter you are, the worse your handwriting is because your hand is trying really hard to keep up with your brain in writing down your thoughts. This actually made sense as I noticed those who appeared to be the D and F students had the most beautiful handwriting. They seemed to have time to write their words with care. Teachers have to have seen the phenomenon all the time, so I'm surprised that my teacher hollered at me so much about it.
I also want to discuss something that started in third grade and plagued every student in Artesia for this and the next three years. This was the year we learned how to do multiplication and division. While there would be issues with that by itself, the big problem was the new textbooks we received. One thing you need to know is that the State of New Mexico's education program has a special fund that can only be used for getting new textbooks every four years. I would always watch TV sitcoms in which the younger characters would always complain about how their textbooks were 20 or more years old. That bewildered me. We got new textbooks on a regular basis, so I couldn't identify with that.
When I was in first and second grades, our math books were designed to give the main lesson on a few pages and then we would do the problems written in the book, tear those pages out and give them to the teacher. I know that there were similar books for the third and fourth grades because I had seen them. But when I got to the third grade, we got these thick books that were published by Harcourt Brace and Holt. These did not have pages that you could tear out. Now, the books included the lessons on a few pages, followed by a page with problems on it. We were supposed to copy the problems onto a piece of paper and solve them. That wasn't the problem. The issue was that the font size was very small and included all the problems in as many as 10 or more columns and rows. The teachers would assign the entire class to complete one page of the problems without realizing they had just assigned 100 problems or more. (And these are supposed to be math teachers). Now, I'm smart, and it would take me about 15 seconds to solve each problem. That means I could do it all in about a half hour. Now, imagine that it takes a below average student at least a minute to solve each problem. Add to that that they were required to re-write the problem from the book, which we didn't have to do before. They would be working on that single page for almost two hours or more. It's no wonder a lot of students could not stand math. It was more work than it was worth. The fact that the whole four years that I used those books, I never once saw a teacher assign less than the full page means they weren't paying attention to the havoc they were creating and were probably wondering why so many students just did not do very well.
We didn't get new books until the 7th grade and I was so relieved to see we got a much thinner math book with fewer problems. However, by that time, calculators became more prominent. If we had had calculators in the 3rd grade, we would have more students able to whiz through their homework.
The third grade was also the first time I got in trouble with the principal. A fellow student had asked me to watch his jacket. After waiting awhile, I kind of felt put upon and threw the jacket over the school fence into the bushes on the other side. He told the teacher and we had to go to the principal's office. The principal made me go around the fence and through the bushes to get the jacket. He then gave me a spanking with his paddle. He didn't hit me nearly as hard as my dad did. It wasn't even punishment.
As you can see, my first three years in school were really not very eventful. No, the fun didn't start until the fourth grade. We'll get to that in a later blog post.
When I was in the first grade, one of the first things they taught us was math. We learned stuff like 1+1=2, 1+2=3 and so on. On the first day of second grade, we learned 1+1=2, 1+2=3. What? We learned this last year! Why aren't we learning something new? My father said it's because too many students forget too much stuff during the summer and a review is in order for the first few days of the school year. Well, if that's the case, why did that one guy have to do the first grade all over? Why isn't there some sort of test we can take for those of us who remember everything we learned so we can go on to the next grade?
So, aside from that, second grade was fairly uneventful. It was almost the same as first grade, but we had to stay in class an extra half-hour. I'm just going to move on to third grade.
In third grade, we finally got to do some more advanced stuff. For starters, we learned cursive writing. I will tell you that my cursive writing is absolutely terrible. I always got bad marks because of my handwriting. The teacher kept screaming at me to make the letters like they do in the book. When I got older, I heard it explained that the smarter you are, the worse your handwriting is because your hand is trying really hard to keep up with your brain in writing down your thoughts. This actually made sense as I noticed those who appeared to be the D and F students had the most beautiful handwriting. They seemed to have time to write their words with care. Teachers have to have seen the phenomenon all the time, so I'm surprised that my teacher hollered at me so much about it.
I also want to discuss something that started in third grade and plagued every student in Artesia for this and the next three years. This was the year we learned how to do multiplication and division. While there would be issues with that by itself, the big problem was the new textbooks we received. One thing you need to know is that the State of New Mexico's education program has a special fund that can only be used for getting new textbooks every four years. I would always watch TV sitcoms in which the younger characters would always complain about how their textbooks were 20 or more years old. That bewildered me. We got new textbooks on a regular basis, so I couldn't identify with that.
When I was in first and second grades, our math books were designed to give the main lesson on a few pages and then we would do the problems written in the book, tear those pages out and give them to the teacher. I know that there were similar books for the third and fourth grades because I had seen them. But when I got to the third grade, we got these thick books that were published by Harcourt Brace and Holt. These did not have pages that you could tear out. Now, the books included the lessons on a few pages, followed by a page with problems on it. We were supposed to copy the problems onto a piece of paper and solve them. That wasn't the problem. The issue was that the font size was very small and included all the problems in as many as 10 or more columns and rows. The teachers would assign the entire class to complete one page of the problems without realizing they had just assigned 100 problems or more. (And these are supposed to be math teachers). Now, I'm smart, and it would take me about 15 seconds to solve each problem. That means I could do it all in about a half hour. Now, imagine that it takes a below average student at least a minute to solve each problem. Add to that that they were required to re-write the problem from the book, which we didn't have to do before. They would be working on that single page for almost two hours or more. It's no wonder a lot of students could not stand math. It was more work than it was worth. The fact that the whole four years that I used those books, I never once saw a teacher assign less than the full page means they weren't paying attention to the havoc they were creating and were probably wondering why so many students just did not do very well.
We didn't get new books until the 7th grade and I was so relieved to see we got a much thinner math book with fewer problems. However, by that time, calculators became more prominent. If we had had calculators in the 3rd grade, we would have more students able to whiz through their homework.
The third grade was also the first time I got in trouble with the principal. A fellow student had asked me to watch his jacket. After waiting awhile, I kind of felt put upon and threw the jacket over the school fence into the bushes on the other side. He told the teacher and we had to go to the principal's office. The principal made me go around the fence and through the bushes to get the jacket. He then gave me a spanking with his paddle. He didn't hit me nearly as hard as my dad did. It wasn't even punishment.
As you can see, my first three years in school were really not very eventful. No, the fun didn't start until the fourth grade. We'll get to that in a later blog post.
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