Eyes Wide Open
I remember the year of third grade and the years that had lead to then. It was almost as if I was being corralled and confined like a farm animal in the classroom. The classroom had cinderblock walls with no posters or color and desks in rows that looked like they were in a military formation. My teachers would keep the whole class inside the classroom with the shades half drawn reading along with a textbook, while the other grades had recess. Throughout the years there was no engagement between reading and writing with me. I was always bored when anybody mentioned a new book
or having to write a paper. Then, in 4th grade there was a beacon of light that appeared. It was the beginning of fourth grade. My teacher showed me the different more interactive ways of learning.
Fourth grade in my elementary school was in a green hallway that always smelled good because people finally started wearing deodorant. Mr. L was my teacher and he was this weird, elfish looking guy. He was weird due to the fact that he has an obsession with Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa. He only wore button up shirts that were green and purple with a color coordinating tie, shiny dress shoes and dress pants. He had this cackle of a laugh that let you know where he was in the hallway. The kind of teacher that was go with the flow but structured at the same time.
During this year we would read books and then go on field trips that related somewhat to the book. It was almost as if I had arrived back to the time I was in preschool when reading and writing came to life. We read books about firemen and then firemen would come visit the school.
Being from New York we would go on a field trip to Cooperstown.
This field trip related back to a book about an old time town that we had read. The town had your farm animals such as pigs, cows and goats, which smelled like poop, and your typical houses for back in the day. People still pretended to churn butter in the houses as examples of how they lived. It was almost as if the book came alive. In the middle of this exhibit town there was a carousel. It was a huge antique ride that was the highlight of every fourth graders day besides going to their town store and buying old fashioned rock candy. When we had to leave this small, make-shift town an epiphany sprang upon me and I finally realized why Mr. L brought us on these field trips. It was to tell us that everything can be used as a reference in writing. When you write it does not all have to be from the imagination. You should use your surroundings as inspiration or a guide when you write, do not be corralled like the farm animals. This is the first time anyone had put both the experience of the real world into reading and writing. This lesson was not taught in a book or in writing papers on different topics everyday. This lesson was taught by going outside the walls of buildings and just absorbing your surroundings.
After the field trip Mr. L introduced us to our first research project. It was a project about animals of our choosing. I chose the roadrunner due to the love of watching looney tunes with my grandpa after school. While doing this research project, my family and I still had dial-up computer. I ended up doing all of my research in books but eventually the school library fell short of books that had to do with the roadrunner.
That was the first time I had to step into my public library. When you walk in the gigantic doors of this victorian era building it is almost as if you are walking into another world. You smell the musty pages of books that have not been checked out in a decade. To get to the children’s section you take an old beaten down wooden staircase that creaks with every move you make. Once you hit the landing of that staircase it brings you into a different dimension full of happy colors and bean bag chairs. Once I saw this library I was hooked. I got a library card and started checking out books, hanging out there with friends and going to their themed movie nights. Without Mr. L I would have never have entered this building and found my new hang out.
I later asked Mr. L why he let us choose our animals instead of just assigning them like every other teacher did before and would do after. He said there is no hidden message in why I did this, it was just so all of you would not lose interest. To me I could not imagine this project making me lose interest and on top of that it brought me a new world.
Sometimes I think back to my year in fourth grade. I wonder what it would be like now if I ended up with a different teacher. A teacher that did not bring any opportunities like these into my world. A teacher that just taught out of a generic textbook with black and white words and a picture every 15 pages. A teacher that did not open my eyes to a different perspective of reading and writing; that brought reading and writing alive. I would have never found a reason to have to go to my public library and have the chance to read almost every book I could possibly ever imagine. I would never have even wanted to open a book or write at all. I’ve always wanted to learn new things, just not in conventional ways. Throughout the time after 4th grade learning has been in textbooks, novels, and writing papers on passages of the books we have read. I have never been fond of any of these learning techniques to this day. For showing me the different ways of going about reading and writing that no other teacher would, I thank him for opening my eyes and for forming that part of who I am today.
