Breaking the Mold

Thirteen years old, in the eighth grade, and eager to please adults. My internal clock woke me up before 5 a.m. every first day of school; body and mind ached mid-way through Christmas break to return to classes; and my journal entries largely consisted of statements like, “I got a 101% on my math quiz, but I missed three extra credit points. I will do better next time.” I remember crying the day I got a B+ on my French quiz and Madame Cerri told me matter-of-factly that I needed to deal with it—that I wouldn’t always be perfect.

Every day I walked to Mr. Moran’s English classroom at the end of the building in the classroom closest to Crown Ave. It was California. Classrooms were outside and I could watch people walking by our classroom through the window. The leaves never changed color, and it never snowed, but occasionally it would rain. I loved the rainy days—hearing the rain beat on the overhang, seeing sheets of water pouring off of the roof, dodging earthworms on the sidewalk, and deciding which teacher’s room to spend lunch in.

A year earlier Mr. Russo asked me if I thought he was pious and made me look it up when I didn’t know what it meant. After consulting the dictionary, my answer was “no.” The same year Mr. Russo taught me about piety, Ms. Leidenthal told everyone my voice was cute. My voice didn’t sound particularly cute to me, but then I heard a message I had left for my mom on our answering machine and it sounded different than when I hear myself talk.

In Mr. Moran’s class we read To Kill a Mockingbird and Inherit the Wind. We learned how to write. We really learned how to write. We learned the five paragraph essay. I love the five paragraph essay. I loved it then and I love it now. I think that the five paragraph essay is the perfect model of clarity. During my senior year of college I gave a talk in church, and a girl from my ward approached me after to tell me she loved that I used a five paragraph essay format in my talk. The single most valuable thing I learned in my junior high and high school educational experience was the five paragraph essay; thanks, Mr. Moran.

In the midst of this love of conformity, I was defiant. I loved rules and obeying them only to a point, only when the rules seemed logical or reasonable or I respected the person teaching me the rules. Our school had a “Senior Lawn” and a “Senior Patio.” The summer before learning about the five paragraph essay, I was taking algebra—for fun—and our classroom bordered the senior lawn. I walked across the senior lawn to get to my classroom. I stood on the lawn during our breaks from our daily four hours of class. Some soon-to-be-seniors on the cross country team (I think one was named Tatiana, I can still see her face) saw me one day, and I think I even made a face at them. On the first day of eighth grade copies of my yearbook picture were posted all over the wall by the senior patio with the words “Kick Me” written on the posters.

I cried during home room with Mrs. Page. My friend, Caia, abandoned whatever teenager fight we were having that day and went with me to the pay phone so I could call my parents. I’m sure my mom made some calls to Mr. Bachman, the school principal, but this time, my dad called too. Mr. Bachman talked to the senior girls involved. They said I had taunted them. He didn’t do anything. My parents decided I would go to public school the next year.

The rest of eighth grade passed with only minor disruption. Mrs. Ensor, my history teacher, arrived at school one day after being in the bank while it was robbed for the seventh time. She was shaking. Now that bank is a Citibank, and the only one in the area that has bulletproof windows. Katie Kimble won the school science fair when her mom was our science teacher and her dad was the judge. I played my flute in Mrs. Abernathy’s “orchestra” and hated it. I settled for nothing less than an A+, except in P.E. where I kissed-up to Mr. Fernandez in order to get an A. I continued to follow the rules and resent them when they were illogical. And over time, I loosened up. Other things started to matter. The five paragraph essay found its proper place, and occasionally, I break the mold.