First First Grade

If someone were to ask me something about my experience in first grade, I would have to ask them; Which year? First or second?

I remember the first year. A large room upstairs in the corner. I’d recently moved to Huber Heights from West Carrolton, another suburb of Dayton. It was all very different, yet very the same. My family had jumped over Dayton the way one avoids stepping in a puddle. We’d gone from south of the city to north of the city. In any case, I had not gone to kindergarten with the other kids at this school. Everything there was new to me, even the old stuff. 

I remember there was this old pencil sharpener bolted into the far wall of our classroom. This pencil sharpener was as old as the building itself. It shone to me like a relic of the past compared to the new furniture, freshly painted walls, and electric sharpener perched upon the corner of the teacher’s desk. I remember that the cover of my favorite pencil sharpener was gone revealing those raw inner gears. I loved to turn the handle and watch the gears turn in response. I enjoyed watching the spinning blades and the gears work together so seamlessly, so smoothly, to cut away, chip by chip, at the pencil. I could work it fast or I could work it slowly. All the difference depended on my whim, depended on the pencil.

I remember when my oldest sister Stacy, a teenager at the time, came to spend her afternoons as a teacher’s aide for my class.  All the other kids really loved her. I watched as they swarmed around her desperate to give her drawings or lettering worksheets, whatever it was they had at the time. I remember attempting to talk to her myself, I spoke up but she didn’t hear me when I waved she didn’t see me. After a while, I gave up. I sat alone.

I remember being given an assignment and intentionally ignoring it. I remember writing my name but nothing else. I remember refusing to read. I remember refusing to participate.

I do not remember why.

I do not remember anyone ever explaining to me exactly why it had been my sister was sent to our class, why she of all people had been asked to be a teacher’s aide.

I do remember the pencil sharpener. And I do remember the day that they told me I was going to be repeating the first grade. I remember feeling cold and suddenly regretting my stubborn refusal to participate. The news came to me as a shock. It was a bad surprise. Thinking back to who I was as a young child I can only conclude that I had no concept of consequence up until that moment. I had not understood.

I understood pencils. Pencils are easier, always have been. That layer of lead, granite buried beneath the wood, buried beneath a thin shell of yellow paint. I understood that all this stuff had to be chipped away, shaved away, to reveal the true power of the thing. That little solid core stuff, that is what must be treasured, to be sharpened and used like a weapon on paper. Swing high stab low.

In my first year of first grade, I saw things from a very narrow perspective. I was always down on the floor looking up. I had to look up to see my teachers, I had to look up to see my mother, my sister, the chalkboard, the ceiling. 

I remember a few days later; I was caught by the teacher using that old pencil sharpener I’d so loved. I’d known all along we weren’t supposed to use it but I suppose at the time I didn’t care. The teacher told me to look down. I did. There at my feet was a small mountain of shavings. The dust of it was scattered across the floor like ashes blown by the wind.

“You’ve made a mess.” They told me. I nodded my head understanding at last.