Contemplations, Creations and…well it’s a blog.

Returning of Things Lost- Final Memoir

Jamie Costin

Allen

ENG 319

Returning of Things Lost

"Where are you from?"

I twitched at the question; my eyes darted around the strange sixth grade classroom that had walls adorned with academic posters and pictures of the students currently flocking around me. It was like I was the latest animal attraction at the zoo.

"I only lived about 40 minutes away from here actually..." I replied to a tall boy who wore a TOOL beanie and smelled of rubber cement, as I sunk further into my chair, twiddling with my long hair.

"Well why are you here? Did you like, do good in school over there?" a blond came up and demanded as she sat her Abercrombie clad self on my desk.

"Dad's job. And yeah...actually I did really good in school over there," I murmured as I pulled my jacket closer to me and stared at my pencil which graced the top of my first writing assignment with the condemning letter scrawled across the top.

"I heard you went to a private religious school, I bet it was easier there. That's why you're failing over here," the blond smirked as she flipped her hair over her shoulder and playfully pat my head.

"No...it wasn't easier," I defended as I remembered how my parent's said how proud they were of my straight A's because I attended an accelerated school, "It was just different."

These were some of the pleasant conversations I held when I moved and went through the transition between a private school where I had about nine other kids in my grade, to a public school that had well over 22 kids in my class and even more kids in my grade but in different classrooms. I never knew that sixth grade could have so many kids at once. Also, this school had tracks. I had no idea what a track was and was horrified at hearing that my breaks were all chopped up and weird. Plus there was the bigger pressing issue...the issue of my writing.

After I left the security of my tiny little church that I had called school for over six years and moved to a house that wasn't in my hometown that I had been comfortable in, I made myself a little shell and buried myself in it. The kids around me looked at me like I was a foreign object and laughed at me because I got free lunch and wore hand-me-downs from my relatives. I went from enjoying school and trying my best at things to trying to escape from all of it by hiding alone during recess. When I sat in the classroom, girls scoffed and giggled at me and boys had fun stepping all over my stuff and gluing my supplies to the inside of my desk while I was out. I hated it, and plus, every time the teacher would hand me an assignment, I would either ignore it or attempt to write something only to get it handed back with the lovely sixth letter of the alphabet adorning it.

The first conference came when I had been enrolled there for a couple of weeks. After speaking with my teacher, my parents left and I had to go alone into the room to talk to my teacher before I could go home.

"Jamie, your parents are very upset with me because they say I'm making you do badly," my teacher stated matter-of-factly to me as I nervously tiptoed into the room and slowly lowered myself into the uncomfortable looking, cracked blue chair.

"Oh. Sorry..."

"What am I doing wrong? I've tried talking one on one with you about what the assignment is about and you just...I don't know. Ignore me?" she replied as she cleaned her glasses.

"No! I don't...I don't ignore you...I just...I can't do it," I stammered as I jerked my plaid jacket closer around me.

"You can't do what? The homework? Jamie. I know that no one likes doing homework or taking the time to do a good job, but you---"

"You're wrong! I do try...I sit for a long time and try to write. I don't understand what you want. You want things like "voice" and stuff that I have no idea what you're talking about. I never did this bad at my other school. I never had an F, ma'am. Never. That's why Mom and Dad are mad..." I murmured as I bit my lower lip nervously and kicked at tiny pebbles that were all over the ground from the previous victims that were here.

My teacher sighed heavily and placed her glasses back on her nose, "Your parents told me that you won contests for your creative writing and poetry at your last school."

"Uh huh..."

"Well, how come you were able to write then and not now? You have to be able to have voice and the other things I've been telling you to insert into your homework if you were able to win those types of things. Do you remember the last story you wrote, the one about the dog chasing the boys?"

I nodded slowly and twitched as I recalled the grade I had received on that story.

"Well, I told you that the story needed more voice. And you got mad and told me that it was a dog and couldn't talk. Were you serious about that? Is that what you think voice is?"

With wide eyes, I cautiously nodded. I hadn't meant to be insulting or anything. I just thought it would be silly to have a story with a talking dog in it.

My teacher sighed heavily again and dug around in her folder and emerged with the assignment we were currently working on. She asked me to take mine out; I yanked my backpack over to the chair and plucked my paper, all crumpled and covered with random scribbles, out of my bag and plopped it on the table. She raised a gray eyebrow at it.

"Um...I was having a hard time figuring it out...sorry," I quickly apologized as I stared at the desk to avoid her annoyed expression.

"Okay, Jamie. Look. When I want voice," she paused as she circled a sentence on my paper, "what I mean is, I want you to put more of yourself into this. I want the paper to not be just a sentence, I want it to be an explanation of something from how you think it is."

Blink. Blink. Me? Ha, who'd want to read something with me in it? Apparently this thought showed on my face.

"What's wrong, Jamie?"

"No one likes me, why would I want to put myself into writing something? They'll just hate that too. When we're in groups and stuff...no one...cares. They hate it cuz I wrote it. And you don't like it either..." I blurted out as my eyes darted from the teacher, to the floor, and back to meet her stern eyes again. Her perfume was starting to bug me. Old lady perfume, not overtly appealing especially when trapped in a small room with her staring at me pointedly over her thick-rimmed spectacles.

"I doubt the children hate you as much as you think they do dear, and I certainly don't hate you. I just think you need to work more on adapting to this school. Let's sit and figure out what it is that is confusing you..." she concluded as she gave me a small, but very sincere smile. I blinked and scooted closer to her so I could try and glean some helpful information.

As time progressed, I learned everything I had lost when transitioning over to this new place. By sitting alone with her and sometimes the teaching assistant, I was able to find a way to push myself, little by little, back into my writing. I soon found myself ignoring my fellow pupils and their derogatory comments, and was able to combine my train of thought into a coherent piece of writing. Even as the lessons on voice gave way to things like focused sentence structures and word choice, I simply met up with my teacher after the lesson if I felt confused or lost, then she would proceed to have me show and tell her how my past teachers taught me to do something similar. I learned how to use the knowledge I had gained at my other school and adjust it to how this school's "system" went. It took a lot of time and practice, but I managed to learn how to find a happy medium with my writing and forming it into what a different type of teacher's standards and preferences were. This school worked differently, both with its teaching styles, curriculum, and students, but I soon learned that adaptation was key to learning to survive at this school and not to fail the sixth grade.

This concept followed me out the doors of elementary, into middle school, high school, and is still evident in my writing that I procure for college. These concepts both go towards my academic writing life along with my creative writing. When I'm assigned something unpleasant or that sounds difficult, I don't panic and merely type words onto a paper. I sit, think about what it is that this teacher is wanting to glean from my assignment, and adjust it so that I can still work with it. I don't have to write anything perfectly to their specifications, but I can adjust my writing so that I can succeed. Sitting in my steamy sixth grade classroom with many eyeballs on me and confusing assignments always being plopped on my desk, I was more keen to panicking and not being productive and shutting down almost completely. But after that encounter, and learning to cope with it, I can now write things that are pleasing to both teachers and my peers alike without the mental strain. It may not always be the nicest structured thing in the world, or be as particular as a professor would desire it to be, but assignment's get completed and learning ensues. I am always gathering information of some sort, and learning how to apply it. All of these concepts are reflected whenever I sit back and seriously look at my latest assignment. Whether I'm met with a grumble, or a heavy sigh by myself, I still know that even if the paper appears crappy, it can be fixed, and mistakes can be learned from. Mistakes don't always screw us over, in the end, they can prove to be more of a guide than a hindrance and give way to success.