As the thick collar of my polo shirt suffocates my neck, I wonder if my teacher hates me. This is my fifth year at Saint John Regional School, and it’s my fourth grade year. Fourth grade is supposed to be a fun year. We’re the oldest in the main building, we don’t have church buddies this year to prepare to be an older buddy next year, we lead the morning prayers and the Pledge of Allegiance, this is our last year in the little kid uniforms, and our last year before going to Barry Hall, the middle school next to the main building.

One of the first things my teacher told us was that math and science were the most important things to learn, however I only really liked English at the time because it was easy for me. We started with a lot of multiplication, which was hard since my third grade teacher didn’t teach me my times tables very well.

As well as the struggle with math, this teacher decided to pick on me. One time we had inside recess and after we ate a snack she made me pick up the crumbs that others dropped. Another time in math class when I was stapling my papers together, she didn’t like how I did it. She sent me down to the office to “learn how to staple correctly.” It was a common occurrence for her to force me to rewrite entire papers because she simply didn’t like my handwriting. Or she would go through my desk without asking and throw out things like scissors and pencils. One time, she even tried to button my blouse for me in church, even after her I told her not to touch me. This went on for the entire year; I would come home crying, saying I wanted to be homeschooled or go anywhere else but there. She stressed me out a lot, causing me to stay home due to stomach aches.

Towards the end of the year, my parents decided to look into different schools for me. We decided on The Beech Hill School, which is a small independent middle school, and we knew a few people who went there. When fall came around, I was so excited to go to my new school. I didn’t have a uniform anymore, although I had a strict dress code, my new teacher was the nicest person alive, we went into the woods every Friday, and we had a class pet. It did take me a little bit to get used to it, though. I was still used to having to ask to get my water bottle (at my old school, having your water bottle on your desk was too much of a distraction), or getting up and doing anything without asking. I remember at the beginning of the year I asked to sharpen my pencil. My teacher said to go for it and that I don’t have to ask. I wasn’t used to that concept at all. I also wasn’t used to my teacher just checking in on us either. When he would pull me aside, just to tell me something, I would panic. I always thought I was in trouble. This mindset of I’m in trouble, or I can’t do math, I must be stupid, got better over the year. Even though I left Saint John’s and had a better teacher that year, I was still impacted by it. I think that you need to have bad experiences to experience good ones. Without my teacher and my old school experience, I would’ve never wanted to leave and would have never had a better school experience. Struggles and bad experiences open up new opportunities for the better.

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