Childhood Turning Points

My first day at school! Oh, my how happy I was to go to school! I loved the teacher, the blackboard, the exercise books, the readers. Recesses, making new friends. Unfortunately being a precocious child I was usually outspoken and spent considerable time standing in the back corner of the classroom! By grade three I spent considerable time standing outside class in the hallway! So I progressed very well indeed. But I was still happy, the grade three teacher I feared moved to another school. Well, didn’t we move to the other side of town and, you guessed it, there she was ‘Miss All My Nightmares Teacher’ and I was in her class. Miss Marshall! I name her because she deserves to be named and needs to know she almost ruined my academic career! She was so mean and nasty. This turned out to be the worse school year of my life! A turning point for me all the way round. A new baby at home, a family situation that was unhappy and Miss Nightmare. I truly don’t know how I survived the wrapped knuckles and yelling of the teacher.

Added to my misery was a bully at the top of the street. She waited for me every morning and pounced from various hiding places. She went to one of the other schools, “she was better than me because of her school”, plus I was the new kid on the block…..and I swear at eight years old she weighed in at three hundred pounds! At least!. Then I’d get it when I arrived home for losing whatever she took from me! What a dreadful year!

The thing was, you didn’t take your social problems back to your parents. If you were bullied you were expected to handle the situation. However, having said that, should you fight back, you’d get it when you got home. It was a no-win situation as far as I could see.

My first turning point, I grew to hate school! That’s it my eight year old mind said…..no more school for me. No way! I devised every type of illness that year; finally being carted off to the doctor who advised there was nothing wrong with me.

Finally the year ended…but miss bully didn’t; she was there for years to come and I became quite ingenious in avoiding her. But grade four was on the horizon and I met the most wonderful teacher in my whole school career. My second childhood turning point, and an important one….she inspired in me the desire to learn and always presented new challenges for a photographic mind!. She became a friend for many years to follow

This article is linked to my other blog:-
Summer Pinnacles