Journal #1

Journal #1

Chapters 1-3

Perspective of Ms. Caroline

I slumped at my desk after the day. Still sipping on the cool, fresh water Little Chuck Little had brought her earlier. I didn’t expect teaching here to be easy, but the day had been downright hard. I saw I had a long way to go with these children if I wanted them to behave and learn properly using the Dewey Decimal System.

The day had started off fine getting ready in the morning. I pinned up my hair up and put on my favorite red and white dress and slipping on my high heeled pumps. Then I finished off my look by swiping crimson nail polish on. The children had been mostly what I expected when I came into the first grade classroom. Most were energetic with the thought of starting school, but some children were obviously older and laid back with dreary thoughts of returning to the same grade.

I began the day with something simple. I read a story of cats but being the young children they are they all started to squirm before the story finished, clearly unable to drink in the fictional unreality of the story. An irked feeling began brushing at me but I pushed it away, keeping my face clear, deciding to persevere with teaching this rowdy group and keep things from getting out of control. When I could tell the kids may burst if I kept them sitting and listening to a story about cats I decided to start with the alphabet.

I printed it on the board in large letters so all the kids could read them clearly, then questioned them to see if anyone knew what it was. Apparently, I had been mistaken, because more children raised their hands showing me that maybe more had been kept back then I thought. I called on a girl to see if she could read the alphabet. As she easily named the 26 letters I could feel my forehead bunching up. Then I had her read other pieces finally losing my temper. First graders weren’t supposed to know how to read! This would mess with the Dewey Decimal System. I didn’t want her parents teaching her all wrong and from how easily she was reading she must have known for awhile, and I didn’t have time to undo all the damage they could have done. I highly doubted they had gone to college to become teachers like me. I brought her over and spoke to her and she started mumblin’ about all these silly tales and eccentric stories her brother had told her. It must be worse than I thought. I decided to speak to her sternly hoping she would stop readin’ so she could learn how to do it properly.

I continued the day with simple exercises to improve on their reading, but starting to lose my temper again when the same Jean Louise started writing. Oh, all the awful things her parents had been doin’. This girl was giving me heaps of trouble and she only continued to add onto it. Later in the day when it was time for lunch she began speaking up for a boy who didn’t have lunch, speaking to me like I should know how the town was run after I had been here only a day. I’m not indigenous to the area so how was I supposed to know about all the townsfolk? I knew I couldn’t use intimidation on the children so I settled on bringing her sternly into the corner and smacking her hand with a ruler and making her stay there. When the children walked out to leave for lunch I cradled my head in my hands, sighing deeply. I hoped that soon these children would learn their lesson, but even though it had only been halfway through the day I began to feel this was the start of what would be a long year.