The Rollercoaster:
The ups and downs of my high school English Experience
Book reports in middle school and elementary school were the death of me. I hated those with a passion. I don’t remember any specifics of what books I did the reports on. For me, all I remember is that they were painful. That’s when reading started to basically go down hill. I thought if I did all of the book reports on sport books I’d be fine with it because those were the only books I enjoyed reading, but I was wrong. Book reports actually ruined sports books for me, the only sort of reading I liked after kindergarten, where I basically embarrassed myself.
I remember only one specific moment from when I was younger that affected me. I was in Ms. Day’s kindergarten class learning how to actually read. She gave us a project. It was a reading out loud assignment. I was nervous, but I had a long time to practice. I chose The Cat in The Hat by Dr. Seuss to read out loud. The audience was all the younger preschoolers, and my brother was in that class. I wanted to give him a good example so I practiced hard. When it came down to the day, my little brother didn’t pay attention to me reading so I stopped halfway through and didn’t finish the book. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but every time I go to read something out loud, I think of that moment. It really negatively affected me for reasons I cannot explain. I was just thoroughly embarrassed for myself and my teacher. All the emotions hit me, being sad, mad, being frustrated because we all knew I could read the book. After that I basically just started to read the books that were assigned and mandatory to read in school, like Shakespeare.
Shakespeare was prevalent in all four years of high school for me. I hated and still do hate Shakespeare with all my heart. It has some level of difficulty to read, yes but that wasn’t why I hated it. For starters, comprehending Shakespeare is extremely challenging. The way he wrote, the words he used. “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-ey’d monster, which doth mock The meat it feeds on” (Shakespeare, Othello). The way that it is written, the Old English, the words and the examples, his examples are weird and hard to explain. How some words nowadays mean the same thing as back then but are completely different in certain ways is over my head weird. Those aren’t the only reasons though. Junior year was the best and worst year of my English career. It was great because my teacher, Steve Dreher, coached me in writing. He taught me how to write with heart and passion. He taught me how to woo people into my writing. Also my English support teacher, Matt Mcdonald, helped me make my essays more complex with thoughts and more intense. Those two together made me feel confident in my writing. Well not for long.
Towards the end of my Junior year Steve had to get immediate back surgery and had to find a substitute in a short amount of time. The school just had a teacher in the school be a short term sub until they found a long term one. His name was Frank Gallo. Frank and I go way back to freshman year. He was in my Spanish class, kind of weird yes, but he was just trying to learn some Spanish. Anyway he knew me and I knew him. I thought we were on a good page until he met my brother, Collin. Collin is hard-headed. He doesn’t like when people talk down to him or when they are extremely mean to him for no reason, especially a teacher. Frank hated Collin because he wouldn’t back down from an argument with this guy. He would sometimes take the fights a little too far. Frank on the other hand deserved most of the stuff Collin said because he was a mean teacher if he didn’t like you. Frank once told Collin that he wasn’t going anywhere in life and that he wouldn’t get into college because he’s dumb. Collin didn’t take that well as expected, retaliated, and told him to “F himself.” They never got along. Collin and I have always ended up with the same teachers so I was used to the whole “Oh you’re Collins brother” thing and me immediately having a bad reputation. Anyways, when I heard Frank was going to be my sub I was pretty excited because I thought he wouldn’t do that to me due to the fact he’s known me for a while. I was wrong.
So one day we were sitting in class reading Othello, another horrible Shakespeare play. I wasn’t really paying attention. Just thinking back to the days where I was reading the story about how Tom Brady stepped up for Drew Bledsoe after he got hurt and won the game, or the one about Tiki and Ronde Barber. The story was about their journey to the NFL. I must’ve read those books a hundred times. Anyways back to the story. So there I was sitting there reminiscing about the good old days and Frank asked me a question. He asked me to define a big word that made absolutely no sense to me. I said “I don’t know.” He followed up with “Are you serious?” Like yes if I knew what the word meant I would’ve answered the question. I didn’t say that outloud but I really should’ve. After that he told me that I was going to be a ditch digger when I grew up and amount to nothing. I was hurt. He took it too far. I then lost a lot confidence in my academics as a whole. His last day as my sub he returned our papers and mine wasn’t my best work but it wasn’t horrible. He tore my essay apart and there was nothing positive, only negative. That’s when my writing confidence went down the drain. I hoped and prayed I’d never have him again.
My Senior year came around and guess what, I had him as my English teacher. I told myself I wouldn’t let my brother’s bad reputation be passed on to me. At the beginning of the year the reputation was passed on. He was mean and cruel to me. After a good month or two, Frank finally realized I’m not like my brother. He started to realize that my work is actually decent and worth his while. The first project we did was a personal narrative about anything we wanted. I wrote about how my brother has given me a bad reputation and how I plan to break that in his class. I got an A on the paper, then I got a B on some other powerpoint project. I just kept proving him wrong and it felt so good. I finished with B+ in his class overall. I was ecstatic when I finally proved him wrong. Even though I did well in his class and proved him wrong, I still lack confidence in my writing.
Reading and writing for me has been a huge rollercoaster. I’ve had more downs than ups which isn’t fun for me. For every positive, there were multiple negatives. Obviously there was more more stuff that happened to me in the past that I didn’t talk about. Even back in middle school for a few positives, there were multiple negatives, but I never really cared about it in middle school because it’s just middle school. I’m still not confident in any writing I do. I don’t like to show people my writing now because I’m still somewhat embarrassed of it. I just think other kids will think I’m dumb or I have no clue what I’m doing. I hate reading out loud because I’m not good at it. To this day when I read outloud I think back to that kindergarten moment and I freeze up. I know it’s weird but it happens. I know I should be more confident in the things I do. I have hope that things will change soon and I really hope they do.
