« § The time I corrected the teacher's spelling § »
02 February 2003
8:03 PM
Ok, so in the spirit of spending a little extra time not doing work and in the spirit of my previous entry, here's a story.
I mentioned this story earlier, though you may have to dig in there to find the mention. It's the one about second grade and why I can't misspell 'tomorrow'. Also, I notice actually telling this story is not in the spirit of my diary in general, since I seem to have the tendency to mention stories I should tell someday and then never tell them. Here's to a change!
Incidentally, anyone who knows where the title of my previous entry came from, I'm impressed.
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The time is the school year 1990-1991. I assume it was in the fall, because it makes sense in the context of the story, but I have no memory of when exactly it was in the school year. The place is my second grade classroom. I am but seven years old.
I don't know how school worked for you in that grade, but we had our whole day in the same room, save for recess (yes, lunch was eaten at our desks) and special classes like art and gym (phys ed to some of you). This was, presumably, before the failed attempt to put me in the third grade reading class (incidentally not the first attempt of its kind; I should tell those stories, too), which I mention only to point out that we were in there all day, for all intents and purposes.
My class had a new teacher, as the usual second grade teacher had to take a year off. [I want to say for maternity leave, but I can't recall any mention of such a child. Maybe I'm just wrong.] I mean, new to the school. Not really important, but I don't care - it's my story, and I'll tell it with all the irrelevant details I remember and care to include.
Anyhow, one of the neat things she did was to make spelling charts to post on the side of the room. Spelling charts were lists of words that she thought we might use in writing and that she wanted us to learn to spell properly, and also not have to go look them up in a dictionary. I do think we actually were having spelling tests by this time, incidentally. The spelling charts hung on the doors to the closet where we hung up our coats and bookbags and put our lunches on the shelf like good boys and girls. It was a pretty cool oldish closet like all four rooms in that part of the building had. Three sets of pairs of doors were across the front of it, which folded in towards each other when you opened them, so that they were parallel to each other and perpendicular to the length of the closet. Fun stuff, as I recall.
So she put up these spelling charts on the closet doors. They came in groups by topic, as I recall, though I couldn't tell you what the groups were.
One of the words was "tomorrow". The only problem was, she had spelled it wrong. "TOMMORROW" the spelling chart read. Whatever the details of the noticing and reporting process, I did notice the misspelling and told the teacher.
A quick rivalry developed among my classmates. Some, as is common at that age, believed the teacher could never be wrong, and maintained steadfastly that she had to have spelled it right. Some, probably just for the fun of it, joined the crusade against the teacher [though of course I had intended no such crusade; I merely pointed out what i thought was an error]. Some joined "my side", though again, it hadn't been about sides. People got more and more excited. the teacher didn't think she was wrong. Finally, though, someone (the teacher, I think) went to the shelf full of dictionaries (of the kiddie variety, of course) and looked it up.
T-O-M-O-R-R-O-W.
I know I used to have at least one of those old spelling charts at the back of my closet at home. I wonder now and then whether I still have any.
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