31 Days, 31 Memories - Day 9

[bironic]

Hey, it's (almost) Monday! Time to yawn off the weekend sloth and join in the memoryfest. Yes, you.

9. Elementary School

In the first grade I was one of three students in the advanced reading group, Skylights. (The other two were A. and A., both notable among our classmates for being the first to wear glasses, A. doubly so for also breaking his leg and coming in with a plaster cast.) One morning we were sitting in the back of the room having our lesson. I finished reading the assigned section first, so I read one of the paragraphs a second time, glanced up, saw that the others were still reading, and skimmed it again, and again. When I next looked up, the other two and the teacher were watching me. "Are you finished?" one of them asked. They'd been waiting for me.

Comments

[pynelyf.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you intended this to be funny, but it really was--it made me smile wryly. Didn't quite catch that "A. and A." bit. Initials?

Anyway, here's my promised contribution:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/pynelyf/

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I wasn't writing to evoke any specific emotional reaction; I was just setting down the memory. (Unlike yours, which is gorgeous, and which I've commented on in your journal.) It is a bit funny looking back, though it was more embarrassing and seemingly unjust at the time (and not worth explaining the situation to them either).

Yes, one A. was a girl I became friends with and the other A. was a boy who moved away before the end of elementary school. I realized it might be confusing when I shortened their names for privacy, but I didn't want to change their initials, and A1 and A2 wouldn't've worked either.

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

I went to kindergarten and first grade in an American School abroad and was in the third of four reading groups. They were called Bird, Dog, Cat and Fish. I was a cat.
When I got back to Denmark I taught myself to read Danish and was the best in my class, though informally so as we do not grade or divide kids till much later in their shool years.

I do think those groupings were rather mean, in fact. It made everyone look askew at those not good at reading - the fish. Or envious at the birds.
I believe I got to be a Dog when I was half-way through 1st grade. Pretty okay for a kid who'd had only a few months in Kindergarten and didn't speak English when she got there *G*

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Congrats on showing them who's awesome! And all that work paid off because now you have LJ buddies from faraway lands. :)

I do think those groupings were rather mean, in fact. It made everyone look askew at those not good at reading - the fish. Or envious at the birds.

I suppose reading groups and other academic hierarchies at school -- Honors level as compared with Regulars and whatnot -- were like strata of wealth: the insecure at the top sneered at those "beneath" them, middlers strove to rise, the ones who needed help hated everyone who "had it easy" or else were too busy working to pay attention, and those who were secure at the top never noticed the struggles going on around them.

...Or maybe it was just a pretentious exercise in simile. Sorry to say I must have been one of the oblivious.

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

Thanks *S* And it did. At least that's probably why I'm still good at English.

Goes to prove that oblivion can be nice. I haven't thought too deeply about it, but I remember some snide remarks and envy going on at least. Your analogy is probably quite close to the truth.