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Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Greetings, Ripplemakers
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Not This Year Jerry!
Carol Roach
That first year of high school (grade 8) was very rocky for me; the girl that
had been so sheltered all of her life and had never even ventured further than
a 3 block radius from her house. I was now discovering unknown territory and I
was beginning to like it. By the time I had gotten to grade 9, I was going to
the big high school housing over 2,000 students rather than the small annex
that we spent our grade 8 in. I was starting to really like this new high
school scene. Everything was so fresh and new. There were new courses that
opened up new avenues of pursuit for me such as typing and bookkeeping and
there were new teachers. I was finally starting to settle in. I was also a
teenager of 14 years old and I was discovering new crushes as well. My history
teacher became my first crush. He was the first male teacher that I had not
feared. In elementary school I had only female teachers. While in high school
up to this point, I had the terrible Mr. Kaufman for technical drawing in grade
8 and the slightly less menacing Mr. Destounis who taught grade 9 geometry. It
is no wonder that I would have a crush on my history teacher. He was a 30
something year old man that was actually kind and considerate towards his
students. From what I remember, he wasn't particularly good looking. He was
tall and had reddish blond hair. Apart from that I can't remember much now but
back then I adored him and I wanted to please him in the best way that I knew
how. One thing that I had noticed was that he gave a lot of attention to a boy
in the class by the name of Jerry. Jerry was your proverbial "nerd". I don't
think that Jerry knew what it was to get a C in a course but I did. I got lots
of them including in history. So this year to win the attention of my history
teacher I had dreamed of getting an A and getting the recognition of the man I
was so crazy about. Although I had buckled down and started working harder I
had not pushed myself to the limit. By the end of the first term I had managed
to pull off a B but that was still not good enough to rise to level that Jerry
had attained in the eyes of my history teacher. I was about to settle and
accept the fact that I was a B student and not an A student no matter what my
dreams and aspirations were when Jerry himself became the catalyst for change.
I will not deny it. I really did not care too much for Jerry. Jerry was a kid
that never knew what it was like to fail at anything. He was the smartest
student in all of grade 9 and he wore that badge with honour. Believe me, I
could live with that but what I could not live with was his arrogance. He
looked down on his peers and he looked down on me. Intellectually I was
inferior to him and financially I was inferior as well. I came from a ghetto
school in the toughest neighbourhood in the city. When the other kids heard
about anyone coming from Royal Arthur School (elementary school) they shrieked
in terror. They had often asked us if it was true that we carried knives to
school. Of course we didn't it was just one of those myths that had been blown
out of proportion. There had been one incident in the whole seven years that I
attended the school where one boy actually brought a knife to school. However,
he was apprehended and expelled before he had a chance to do any damage. The
myth was then born that everyone carried knives to school and we were a real
tough bunch. So when the kids asked if we had carried knives to school of
course we boasted yes we did. We could not fathom how these kids could be so
ignorant and instead of expelling the myth for what it was we played it up. We
were 14 years old and enjoying every moment of our notoriety. Jerry on the
other hand was not afraid of me or the school that I had come from. According
to him I was just "ghetto trash". Actually I really was just a very shy kid
who preferred to be in the background rather than in the limelight. Yet I don't
know what came over me that day when Jerry stated that he had never been
anything less than the top in his class for history and I blurted out without
thinking "not this year Jerry". He looked at me with a sneer and said "and who
is going to defeat me; you? Then he dismissed me like the garbage he thought
that I was and walked away. I stood there dumbfounded. I didn't know what to
say. The group that had gathered around to hear this exchange edged me on.
They told me that I could not let him get away with this. This year I had to
beat him. Me, the struggling to maintain a B student who really was a C student
in disguise was going to beat an A student? I just could not see this happening.
But Richard Bailey a boy from my old school said to me "Carol you have to do it,
you are smart enough and our reputation is at stake. You've got to show him
that we kids from Royal Arthur School may be poor but we are not dumb". How
could I refuse, I had the reputation of my old school at stake, I had to teach
Jerry a lesson, and this was my golden opportunity to prove to my history
teacher that I was worthy of his love. I still had this big crush on him! The
competition was on! I studied like there was no tomorrow. Each test or paper we
submitted had us running neck and neck for the top position. One time Jerry
would score a point or two higher than I did and the next time I would score a
point or two higher than him. The class was divided. All the girls cheered me
on while the boys cheered him on. I also had the support of the Royal Arthur
School boys so I did have a bigger following then he did. Jerry did not take it
lightly. He refused to talk to me the rest of the school year. Suddenly my
history teacher started noticing me. He also noticed that there was some kind
of competition going on between myself and Jerry. Since he picked up on the
vibes in the classroom about the scores he started announcing to the whole
class what our scores were. You would then hear the hoots and hollers from
whichever side was in the lead at that point. You could tell from the smile on
my history teacher's face that he really loved what was transpiring in his
classroom. The end of the school year was now at hand. We had just a term
paper and the final exam to be graded. I had scored 99% on the exam and Jerry
had scored 96%. The cruncher would be the score for the term paper. I had to
score at least the same score as Jerry on the term paper to tie for the overall
final grade. I didn't think that I could score better as he was actually a
better term paper writer than I was. I thought that I would score about five
points less than Jerry if the trend would continue the way it had been going
all year long. I did better in the exams while he did better in the term papers.
The pressure was on and you could feel the tension in the classroom. The
history teacher prolonged our agony. He did not hand out our papers with the
rest of the class. He hung onto them until the very end of the class. Though
neither Jerry nor I said a word the students begged him to tell the whole class
what we got on the term paper. Finally after what seemed like an eternity, the
history teacher handed out our papers. Jerry Morgan A - 85%, Carol Buckingham A
- 85%. I was ecstatic and the whole class jumped up. Final score for the year
Jerry Morgan 86% - Carol Buckingham 86%. Okay so I didn't beat him but I
proved my point. Jerry was not the best student in his history class that year.
I was happy he was not!
Carol Roach
winterose @ videotron.ca
If you enjoyed this story and would like to read more of my work please contact
me at my email address: winterose@videotron.ca or you can join my newsletter
storytime_tapestry-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Stay tuned for my book: Picking
Up The Pieces: A Woman's Journey which will be out in bookstores, at www.
publishamerica.com and www.amazon.com within the next month or two. I like to
thank all of you who have supported me all these years and encouraged me to
write the book. I will be eternally grateful.
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May you be blessed today
Bob Johnston
Editor / Publisher
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