3rd Grade



I really struggled in first and second grade trying to learn and understand math. I'm talking simple addition and subtraction. I had been teased so much by dad that I couldn't trust-not anyone and not anything. In other words just because 2 + 3 equals five, that did not mean that 3 + 2 equals five. Nor did it mean that if it did this morning it would this afternoon, or tomorrow. My saintly second grade teacher, Miss Hanmore, finally got some popsicle sticks and gave me a whole passel of them. She helped me use tactile means to figure out that 2 + 3 or 3 + 2 are always going to equal 5. Always.

Math wasn't my only challenge. I struggled with reading as well. The teacher would make reading flash cards for me to take home and practice the words. My dad would 'help' me practice my reading words. I went to school many times with black eyes due to his 'help'. I still have memories of sitting at the corner of the dining table with him holding the flash cards and flipping them. There might be a dozen cards to a sheet of gray cardstock-they were run off on a mimeograph machine (copy machines had not yet been invented) so the ink was purple from the spirit master. He'd struggle with me to get through them. One night-the last time I ever took cards home-I was actually starting to get the words but was confusing there and their. Dad's hand would come flying at me if I got it wrong/switched around. It got to the point where he was snickering and laughing to watch me flinch-even if I got the words right he was raising his hand as though he'd strike. Sometimes he'd use his right hand and then he'd sneak in his left hand.

He did do one thing very, very right. I was doing pretty good in 3rd grade and had made quite a few strides in learning and understanding how to learn. So he stopped at a store and bought me two "Little Golden" books, Animals and Their Travels and The Sea.

I treasured those books and that gift and that gift of love that my dad gave me.

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