I went to a very rigid elementary school. If you know my family, you can easily imagine that we would all chafe against it, but it was the only game in town. My father was a clinical psychologist with progressive ideas about education and child development. My mother had been a music teacher before I was born, and her ideas were equally child-centered. I am very much their daughter.
When I was in first grade, one of the morning routines involved copying writing from the blackboard. I remember the sentences as completely uninspiring, such as: “It is fall. The leaves are many colors.” I hated copying from the board. It was grueling work. It takes a long time for a six year old to copy that many words, forming the letters correctly, so that they touched, but didn’t cross, the solid and dotted lines, as appropriate. But it wasn’t primarily the drudgery I objected to; I wanted to do my own writing.
Brief aside: I loved my first grade teacher, Miss Brooks. I will probably write a post about her, and yes, I will title it, “My Miss Brooks.” But in this scenario, she represented the rigidity of the system.
After weeks of complaining to my parents, my mother met with Miss Brooks to discuss letting me do my own writing. Miss Brooks told my mother that the reason we had to copy from the board every day was to develop eye-hand coordination. The second grade teachers had complained that their students lacked the eye-hand coordination to copy from the board, so we first graders were getting in shape for second grade. It had nothing to do with developing writing skills or with fostering a love of writing.
My mom managed to negotiate a deal in which Miss Brooks would allow me to do my own writing once a week as a substitute for copying from the board. Two of my compositions hung on the kitchen bulletin board for years. They are now preserved in a photo album somewhere in my mother’s house. Until she finds them and sends me photos of them, I will transcribe them here from memory, complete with creative spelling.
My grandmo and grandpo didn’t come this year. I wish that they would come.
My sister Sephrah has cirly hair, she is qute and I love her.
Miss Brooks corrected my spelling errors. She included an explanation on the second piece that qu makes the /kw/ sound. That was an example of relevant instruction. Imagine how much more I could have learned about language and writing if I had been able to write something meaningful every day!
Incidentally, my mother, who is known for saving everything, never saved the writing I copied from the board.