Third grade angst...

So Rick thought that my Soda in the Desk story yesterday was rather weird. And hey, I admitted that I was a weird kid… and yes, an only slightly less weird adult. But that’s just me. And I’d rather be a little bit weird than a run-of-the-mill conformist who follows the herd. (Because where’s the fun in THAT?) :)

Still, I feel I must clarify something about my third grade soda story. In third grade, my teacher’s name was Mrs. Tieckelmann. And Mrs. Tieckelmann was a scary, scary woman. Or at least she was scary to an eight year old. Perhaps adults found her to be a perfectly pleasant, friendly person – but in our classroom, she seemed anything but. She was tall, and thin, and angular, and she wore thick glasses that made her eyes look big and constantly attentive. As she walked around the room, gliding between aisles and looking over shoulders at our daily assignments, she reminded me of a bird of prey – it seemed like she was circling overhead, waiting for her chance to swoop in and peck out our livers. She would tell us stories of her own childhood, when her parents would smack her hand with a ruler if her handwriting wasn’t executed just so. And for some reason, this only made her seem even more frightening – as if she still had that ruler somewhere, stashed on her person, ready to brandish at a moment’s notice. (And I never HAVE had very good handwriting…)

Our class was divided into groups for our reading lessons, depending on which reading level we’d achieved. And I remember one particular day, as my small group gathered for our reading lesson, that I suddenly realized I’d forgotten my reading homework. I remember it so well, because I’m not sure I’d ever before that (or even any time after, in all my years of school) forgotten a homework assignment. And I was dreading what would happen when Mrs. Tieckelmann realized it – and sure enough, even though it happened only ONE time, the Bird of Prey scolded me in front of all my peers and ordered me out to the hallway to finish the assignment. And what I found particularly unfair about this treatment was that I'd been seated across the table from a boy who made it a HABIT to forget his homework. He probably misplaced or forgot an assignment once a week. And yet HE seemed to get a free pass every time. Never scolded harshly, never sent out alone into the hallway – no, that was reserved only for me. And I could justify this treatment by assuming Mrs. Tieckelmann EXPECTED me to do better, whereas that other kid was an habitual slacker – but who knows if that’s really what was going on? At the time, I just assumed the Bird of Prey hated me and liked the other kid more…

Mrs. Tieckelmann also constantly wore a giant black scuba diving watch – apparently she was a scuba diver. But she wore the watch with everything – I often wondered if she owned another watch. What if she had to dress up for a fancy dinner out somewhere? Would she still wear the ugly, clunky watch? And why on earth was she wearing that watch when we all lived in Buffalo, New York?? Not much decent scuba diving in Buffalo… unless people make a habit of diving into Lake Erie… which I seriously can’t imagine…

So perhaps if I’d had a teacher I perceived as friendly and nice, I wouldn’t have been nearly so anxious about the half-empty soda can. But as it was, I felt like I was constantly on edge in Mrs. Tieckelmann’s classroom. If one forgotten homework assignment set her off, who knows what a little spilled soda would do? It was best to make no waves… because someone so enamored with scuba diving would certainly notice…

I think it was Mrs. Tieckelmann who once told my mom that I was a “worry wart” (a rather strange expression, if you ask me…). But I wonder if she knew that SHE was the source of much of my third grade worry? Probably not…