Pee-wee Baseball

First grade was my least favorite year of elementary school, and the teacher was Mrs. Tower. Each week we had a packet we had to do that was due on Friday. I really hated it. I don't remember doing anything in her class except packets week after week. Usually, I waited until Thursday to finish most of it. My least favorite part was the back page. We had to cut and paste and color little objects on the page. Now, it doesn't seem like that would be much of a pain, but I definitely remember not liking it then.

The second grade was my favorite grade of elementary school. Mrs. Brown, the teacher, was a very cultural person. Our class had many parties throughout the year celebrating different holidays for different cultures. We did a lot of geography, which I still dislike to this day, and had to memorize the countries and capitals of Europe and South America and the states and their capitals of the United States-most of which I do not remember. For doing various things in class-I don't remember what-we could earn extra names in a big tub which at the end of the first semester was used to draw out who the king and queen would be. I did all I could to get my name in the bucket, and I guess it paid off. At drawing time, I was appointed King of the Classroom, and some girl named Amanda whom I remember nothing about was appointed queen. We got candy and got to wear crowns and robes that day and maybe two other days the rest of the year, but it was fun while it lasted. When learning about Indians, we could earn some type of monetary unit that currently evades my memory and go to "trading posts" and buy items from them with our "money."

Third grade was an interesting year since my class was half third grade and half fourth grade. Many things were taught to both classes simultaneously, so I was able to learn many things that I would not have normally in the third grade. For math, Mrs. Philips taught only one class, and we all used the same fourth grade math book, which I suppose may be the reason I am so good at math now.

Throughout this time, I had few friends. Jimmy and Matt were both in the same Cub Scout troop as I and on the same baseball league. They claimed to not be my friends, but I always hung out with them anyway. Kevin Doyle was a good friend of mine for the one year that he lived there. At recess we would usually talk and play games, but he didn't have the same teacher and was only there for my second grade year. I sat with Violet in the lunchroom and tried to fend off all of the jokes and jingles that are said and sung in a typical elementary cafeteria.

The first four years of education for me was quite uneventful, but I was taught the fundamentals of learning that would be the foundation of the rest of my educational life. It is this step that we all must take before heading on to bigger and more difficult tasks.