SO BORING

I still remember the holes in the ceiling tiles in grade school. I'd look up at them. I'd count the dots in each panel. I'd be bored to death.

What does that say about a 5th grader? To me it says I wasn't challenged. Not that I made great grades. Not that I didn't love learning. The repetition, the structure, the wasted energy just got to me.

I don't know if I was gifted or not. I know my teachers at Field/Hall Grade School echoed the same reports to my parents: "he's not working up to his capabilities". Every year. So was that supposed to inspire me? Or were my parents supposed to do that? The teachers didn't. Not that I disliked any of them. In fact I liked almost all of them except my third grade teacher who sapped a lot of my enthusiasm for school. I mean I even liked Miss Lerch for 6th grade reading. Almost no one liked her.

We had plenty of smart kids in our grade school, too. From our class we had a medical doctor, an economist, several teachers, several successful businessmen and women, and a mayor. I don't know if they worked up to their capabilities or not. "I can't know," as our youngest grandson says, but I have a feeling there were others in our school similar to me.

I wish I could say it stopped in grade school, but the same pattern followed me to junior and senior high, undergrad and graduate school, though I did get much more grade conscious in grad school. But I could still count the dots. School still bored me.

So what vocation would I choose except teaching. It was rarely boring to me on the other side of the desk. Now teachers' meetings, conferences, and in-services had me searching for those tiles.