How My Love of English Survived Even Catholic School Nuns

When it comes to learning how to read and write, sometimes it seems that we become literate against all odds rather than naturally doing so. Literacy is a struggle which most children must go through within their primary education. Oftentimes, struggle towards literacy is related to other struggles in their lives, such as the struggle to find their place in the large, daunting world of adults. My struggle was being a storyteller in an environment which leant itself more to the oppression of words than the expression of them.

I didn’t fit into the “House” binary that most of the children of the class fell into. When I tried to make things go more in the direction I wanted them to go, I ended up as the “villain” of the game. I was tired of always ending up as the bad guy. With no one else to turn to, I turned to myself. I decided to make my stories go the way I wanted them to go. We had no playground at my Catholic school. There was only a bleak, gray parking lot cordoned off by traffic cones and a vast field taken over by sports games. I would walk around talking to myself, playing out stories from my mind and putting them into live words. I created characters masquerading as imaginary friends and plotlines that were cut off when the teacher up front blew into a big, metal whistle. I was a writer before I knew that I could put words down onto a page. No one seemed to understand what I was doing, and no one ever suggested to me that writing was an option to convey more stories rather the verbal storytelling that so concerned the teachers. Instead they would call in my Mother weekly, and there would be a constant barrage of scolding me for walking around by myself rather than playing with the other children. There was no point in time which any of them would pull me aside and ask what I was doing, or suggest that I write my stories down instead. Contrary to the commonly held “right” belief that the literate teaching of a child is a group effort, literacy in writing was something I came to largely on my own.

It was out of boredom that I became more literate. As a child I was enrolled in many remedial classes, reading and writing being one of them. One day I was sitting in my Mother’s office while she was off running an errand. It was getting dark outside the windows, making the office take on a dull golden glow. I listened to the fax machine sing an electronic version of “Take Me Out To the Ball Game” and glanced over to the canary yellow writing pads. It was then it occurred to me that instead of speaking my stories out loud to myself, I could write them down. I took up the yellow writing pad and Sharpie, and began writing down instead of saying them out loud. I no longer felt the urge to say words that I could see on the page, and I could write things faster than I could say them. The idea that I could look back over and read what I was thinking of rather than losing it to other thoughts seemed miraculous. I began to look up words when I needed them via a huge dictionary that my Mother kept in her office for emails. Almost overnight my comprehension in reading and writing improved. I no longer needed to be in the remedial class, and instead advanced at a rapid rate. I was able to read books within a day that too my classmates months to read. I was able to churn out essays with proper grammar that seemed to be new to my classmates, yet was old hat for me. English became my favorite subject in school. Yet that would find itself surviving against all odds rather than being nurtured as well.

There was a nun named Sister Helen. She was old and seemed to remember the days in which nuns could hit children with rulers over the knuckles. That was not how she enacted cruelty upon us tender period fourth graders, whom were surrounded by the struggle of trying to fit in with the “cooler”, older world. One of the most notable things I can remember Sister Helen doing was confiscating silly bands from students. She would then proudly display them upon her wrists during school outings while claiming that she “found them on the floor”. Sister Helen was also known for her temper, which was as easily ignited as a dry wheat field in the summertime. She would yell at a target group of “bad kids”, take away the classes’ privileges, then expect the rest of the class to discipline these “bad kids” through mob mentality. Though most of the time this anger was directed indiscriminately. She was the homeroom teacher for half of the fourth grade, though she would teach English for the entire fourth grade. None of us could escape her wrath. I found myself further pushed to the outskirts of the social crowd as I held strong onto my love of English. I could see it waning within the teary eyes of my classmates as Sister Helen decided to unleash her screaming tirade upon them. Though I do remember the one, unfortunate time that I did catch myself in her rage.

There was a question in our reading textbook, and several students had gotten it “wrong”. Each time her face grew a redder shade of pink. I believe that at that time, around three students had gotten the “wrong” answer. Being good at English, I decided against all odds to give the question a try. When I thought I had the “right” answer, I raised my hand. I got the question “wrong”. I remember her walking up to my desk, looming over me, her face spitting and glowing a hot red as she screamed at me and then the whole class. I steeled myself against the tirade as Odysseus in the storm, tuning it out of my mind. I don’t remember what she said to me. After she had done the deed, she returned to the board and decided to answer the question within the textbook. No one had gotten the “right” answer. She had us all get up and look at the answer within the book. Unlike most of the children, I was amazed by myself. I hadn’t cried during her screaming as most children did, and in spite of her yelling, I realized that I still cared about the story we were reading. I loved English too much to allow her tirade to take control over how I saw it. Though to this day, I still question whether or not the textbook was wrong.

I found myself pulled into the world of literature and storytelling as a safe haven from a world which seemed to want to only have the “right” answers. There was no room for interpretation or creative freedom. In a world full of socially aloof protagonists, I found myself in the role of the outcast. I embraced it and fought against the grain which wanted the right, textbook answers. Even when the world wishes to kill your passions, you must keep them alive. Literacy is a struggle to keep alive, but you can do it against all odds. Being literate and determined was the only thing that saved the storyteller from a world that wanted her to stay quiet.