My 6th grade teacher

Mama Kat's at it again. Head on over here to join in the fun!

This week's prompts:
1.) Your sixth grade teacher.
2.) A blog post inspired by the word: diapers
3.) Open your picture folders, close your eyes and pick a random photo to share and write about.
4.) What is your favorite age? If you could stay that age forever, would you?
5.) List 6 people or things that deserve to take a time out!


When I was in kindergarten, I thought Mr. B was so cool. When our half-day class made ducks out of construction paper, the 6th graders made eggs. Then, a few days later, the eggs hatched and there were a bunch of little chicks running around. THEN, he used a hole punch and black construction paper to made duck poop and came over to tell us that our ducks were pooping everywhere. It was so cool. He did that with other art projects that we hung in the hallway, but the ducks were the most elaborate and by far my favorite.

Mr. B had also been my brother's favorite teacher and his reward system of "auction bucks," which gave you play money for doing well and fines for things like talking in class, not doing your homework etc, was infamous.

So when my parents suggested we move across town into my aunt's larger house, I begged to stay where we were until I finished elementary school, because I just HAD to have Mr. B. Fortunately, my parents agreed. We did some interesting things that year- we made a budget, had a Superbowl pool (Steelers lost to the Cowboys that year, it was a sad day), had auctions with our Auction Bucks and I won an electric pencil sharpener, which was the shit in 1996.

But my 6th grade year wasn't all that I had hoped. My kindergarten teacher wasn't in our school anymore, so the little kids art work hung on the wall, untouched. Oh yeah, then there was the whole, "Mr. B called me a spoiled brat and overall didn't like me" thing. I wrote about the incident where I played lawyer in 6th grade and refused to do a punishment because it violated my constitutional rights the prescribed cafeteria punishments. There was other times where he had told me something similar when I messed up; such as when my friends and I were horsing around and someones chair got pulled out from under him. I honestly don't know what happened, but someone getting hurt was never the intention.

My mom thinks that he wanted my books for in the classroom and she told him no. Do you remember those classroom book orders? Well, my mom used to by me $20-$30 in books, a pop. I loved to read and Mr. B often commented on the number of books that I had and hinted around to my mom about me donating them to our classroom. But apparently, I had seen him throw books away, according to my mom, and I was devastated. "They were perfectly good books and he could have given them to someone to take home, but he threw them away!!" I don't remember any of this, but even now, I think it's senseless for someone to throw books away, unless they have severe damage. So my mom figures that this had a lot to do with his dislike of me. I'm sure the cafeteria incident added to it, but he disliked me before that.

When I started 7th grade in a new school with no friends, I sometimes wished that i had agreed to move when my parents suggested it. It would have been easier to make friends in elementary school, instead of waiting until Junior High, but hindsight is 20/20. The one silver lining is that one of the best, kindest, most caring teachers I've ever had was Mr. P in 5th grade and I would have never had him if I hadn't wanted to wait to have Mr. B. From Mr. P, I learned patience- he never raised his voice at us; I learned kindness- he never called students names; I learned that hard work is totally worth it- he made us write out the questions with the answers and I got All As and 1 B, a big improvement from my first C in 4th grade! Things might not always work out how we plan, but we usually get to where we're supposed to be.