Summer has arrived again, and with every morning I wake, dwindling in the absence of my alarm clock’s normal sound, I realize that school is over for the first half of 2009.
I realize that my days as a sixth grader were over when the final bell for the year of 2008-2009 rang its final buzz. When I walked out of the building, without thinking about it, I was over with sixth grade. I was a second grade.
Being in seventh grade presents so many opportunities: no longer am I the youth of the school; I am in the middle, and upon arrival of the 2010-2011 year, I will be in eighth grade.
It seems only last weekend I had the New Year’s celebration, with family coming over all across town, singing karaoke (as is the unspoken tradition) and having fun. Only the other day did I meet my teachers for the first time, my eccentric ELA teacher telling me her love for her blue wall.
“My blue wall,” she had told us, “is a prime example of the love this school gives its teachers. Before the blue wall was installed,” she informed us, stroking the wall like a child, “this room and the next-door room were connected and only separated by one flimsy pull-over partition.”
It was a flimsy partition, one that you could instantly pull over and, bam, two rooms would turn into one. Great for meetings, parties, and anywhere where a lot of space is needed. Not a classroom.
“Someone in that classroom would sneeze, and kids from this classroom would say ‘bless you’,” my ELA teacher told me. “We would be teaching a subject while the room next door would be having a test on the same thing. It was chaos.”
And so the teacher had complained quietly amongst the other ELA teachers, never expecting the administration to do anything. But when she came back for the next year of teaching, a beautiful blue wall had been installed.
“Blue is my favorite color,” she told us. “I will never stop teaching until I retire, because I love kids, and I love a school administration… an administration that cares.”
soul log is the writing playground of thirteen year old Brandon Wang, a student and self-crowned web designer, living in the Houston, Texas area. He has been writing soul log for over four years. This is his journey.
The Blue Wall
Summer has arrived again, and with every morning I wake, dwindling in the absence of my alarm clock’s normal sound, I realize that school is over for the first half of 2009.
I realize that my days as a sixth grader were over when the final bell for the year of 2008-2009 rang its final buzz. When I walked out of the building, without thinking about it, I was over with sixth grade. I was a second grade.
Being in seventh grade presents so many opportunities: no longer am I the youth of the school; I am in the middle, and upon arrival of the 2010-2011 year, I will be in eighth grade.
It seems only last weekend I had the New Year’s celebration, with family coming over all across town, singing karaoke (as is the unspoken tradition) and having fun. Only the other day did I meet my teachers for the first time, my eccentric ELA teacher telling me her love for her blue wall.
“My blue wall,” she had told us, “is a prime example of the love this school gives its teachers. Before the blue wall was installed,” she informed us, stroking the wall like a child, “this room and the next-door room were connected and only separated by one flimsy pull-over partition.”
It was a flimsy partition, one that you could instantly pull over and, bam, two rooms would turn into one. Great for meetings, parties, and anywhere where a lot of space is needed. Not a classroom.
“Someone in that classroom would sneeze, and kids from this classroom would say ‘bless you’,” my ELA teacher told me. “We would be teaching a subject while the room next door would be having a test on the same thing. It was chaos.”
And so the teacher had complained quietly amongst the other ELA teachers, never expecting the administration to do anything. But when she came back for the next year of teaching, a beautiful blue wall had been installed.
“Blue is my favorite color,” she told us. “I will never stop teaching until I retire, because I love kids, and I love a school administration… an administration that cares.”