Evil in the First Grade

My entry into the school system was the rosy, sunshine-y song every Kindergartener hopes for after watching a few too many episodes of Barney and The Wiggles. Thanks to our country's failure at providing enough affordable childcare for working humans trying to put food on the table, I spent two years before Kindergarten in preschool; this ended up being not only the coolest two years I spent in the school system but a complete blessing because I was SO ready to walk in and flex my play skills with my teacher Barbie lunch kit in hand. I knew how to make friends, how to sing repeat-after-me songs, and even how to share the water table if I felt like it. I didn't even wave goodbye to my mom, which I've now made up for by waving goodbye to her and yelling that I love her every chance I get. She prefers I do not do it when departing a public washroom, but we all have our little quirks, don't we?

I adored my Kindergarten teacher, and she adored all of us. She was a lovely woman full of song who carried a xylophone and wore long floral skirts and had freckles. She was the forest nymph of ABC's and she loved that I loved learning. She encouraged me and nurtured me and made me truly love learning so much that I was mad when we had to stop school for the summer; I crossed the days off of the calendar for the two long months before I started the first grade. My Barbie lunch kit and I were ready to roll once more., this time with no front teeth.

You know those teachers that just adore children? The ones that seem to really share in their wonderment, appreciate their imagination, and just seem to be giving their entire lives to making children happy?

That's the exact opposite of who I met in the first-grade classroom that day. Mrs. B *shudder*.

This woman was a literal monster. Her voice was nasal and shrill and she smelled like pencil shavings. She had tight red curly hair that somehow formed a perfect triangle on top of her head, teeth like the squirrel on the peanut butter jar, and always wore a brooch on her scratchy knit sweaters. She had so many brooches she did NOT repeat brooches, but she didn't like us talking about her brooches or asking her about them. And they were never nice, it'd be like a weird little naked angel baby or like a lizard or something. She yelled at us instead of using a xylophone. When she sang repeat-after-me songs, she furrowed her brow and somehow widened her eyes at the same time and somehow she seemed to be scolding us as she sang. To this day, I think she is the only person I've ever seen angrily sing Old McDonald. It haunts me, the way she angrily clucked like a chicken.

Mrs. B didn't seem to like those of us who our forest nymph of a kindergarten teacher nurtured and encouraged to be enthusiastic about learning. She seemed to find our 6-year-old enthusiasm disgusting, rolling her eyes at our raised hands and loudly croaking that we were incorrect any chance she could. The one thing Mrs. B seemed to really enjoy was art and drawing. We spent a lot, and I mean A LOT of our time in her classroom doing step-by-step drawings of various animals and objects that she somehow would work in to the first grade curriculum. Looking back, I'm not sure what curriculum we followed, but it was a lot of focus on farm animals. Rural Alberta is a weird place. I digress.

These step-by-step drawings, often beginning with a circle, and adding more circles, then connecting certain circles to other circles that somehow ended up being the desired farm animal of Mrs. B's choosing, gave Mrs. B even more reason to hate my cheerful, enthusiastic little guts. My animals never quite looked right. My cows looked a little more like donuts with legs, and my dog sort of looked like a rat, but I enjoyed by donut cow and rat dog. I was six. I was just trying to get through the day without peeing my pants or getting caught trading pokemon cards during class. Donut cow was the least of my worries. Mrs. B, however, was not amused. She scolded my hasty crayon strokes and she sneered and loathed donut cow in his pathetic sprinkle-y glory. And then... came... bubble sheep.

He was roughly the billionth drawing we had to do of her beloved farm animals, and he was a lot of circles. I finished the shading on his legs, a nice light blue for a touch of winter fun, when the bell rang and the class began to shuffle to their lockers to get ready for recess. I walked up to Mrs. B polishing another naked angel butt broach.

"I finished my sheep, Mrs. B." I cooed so as to tame her hatred.

She snickered.

"That I HIGHLY doubt." Bubble sheep was snatched out of my hands. Mrs. B looked down her nose, crumpled the paper in her sharp talons, and tossed it into the trash. I stood there for a moment, wide eyed. I turned to walk to recess before I too was crumpled up and thrown in a trash bin. Mrs. B screeched.

"You'll be missing recess to re-do the drawing, and you will miss every recess until you can get it right."

It was like she was angry that I was good at school so she needed to find something I was bad at... I think? To this day as an adult I just can't understand why such a vile woman worked with kids that young. She literally hated laughter, and I'm pretty sure it made her soul die. Bubble sheep was a mess, but you could tell he was a sheep. Sheep normally look like a stack of bubbles anyway don't they? I'm no sheep expert to this day, but please show me where in the curriculum for 6-year-olds it says that they must be good at drawing sheep. This went on for days. Every recess I sat there drawing circles while Mrs. B cackled and rubbed her scorpions or trolls or baby toes or whatever the hell was pinned to her sweater that day. Until one day, when I got home from school, my mother asked me what I did that day at recess.

I took a drag of my candy cigarette. "Recess?" I exhaled and looked to the horizon. "Haven't heard that name in years." I began to explain my woes, to mourn bubble sheep, and to ask where old ladies get their brooches. My mother made a phone call to the school, and Sheepgate was finally over. I never got a final grade for bubble sheep. Because you can't grade 6-year-olds on drawing sheep.

I've tried to find the evil old broad on facebook in the past so I could message her and ask her why she hates me, but I haven't been able to thus far. She was the first mean teacher I ever had and honestly one of the only ones I ever had. In a way I'd like to thank her for letting me know the world is an evil place early on in life, and I wonder if I'll ever find her; I'm sure she's out there somewhere, drinking the blood of the innocent, yelling at children, and drawing sheep.