While many times I do indicate that my public school journey was indeed a challenge, indeed there is a reason for going to school, and that is to learn. Yes, there are times when I did indeed not want to learn and my challenges made it more difficult to be able to learn, but there was a school year that indeed had its challenges, but also was the year that I knew that I was on the right path by learning just two important lessons in life.

It was third grade, and in my home or neighborhood school with a mix of what eventually became the most tenured teacher in the district along with some challenging behaviors, it was apparent that I needed to be placed in an emotional support classroom. The issue was that my home/neighborhood school did not have such a classroom, therefore this would require me to attend another school, of which there were many anxieties. But thankfully I would land in the classroom of one of the three best educators for an elementary emotional support classroom that you would want to have. I would not only have this teacher for that year, but the following year and would still be see her in many of the two following years at that school.

Nonetheless, at that time in the world of third grade education, you were taught hand or cursive writing. This was by far one of the most challenging lessons that I had in this, if not all the schools of the district. This was in the mid-1990’s and I remember that when I would make so many mistakes at the handwriting with each and every letter that I had learned that when in school, the teacher or her aid could run across the hall to make a copy, but at home that was a different story where I recall my parents and I having to erase the paper so many time that there would be big holes in it., Eventually by years end and by the next year, I mercilessly accomplished the ability to write in cursive, now an outdated tool. While I agree that my writing four decades later is not perfect, it is sufficient.

Now the next lesson was the start of something life changing. We went on a field trip that started by touring the county jail, then to Pizza Hut for lunch and an afternoon of bowling at the local bowling alley, where I would later join the junior bowling league. But, when you go to a bowling alley, you rent shoes. The only problem was that I did not know how to tie shoes as I wore slip on shoes. Eventually, the dear educator caught on and thus a phone call was made to my mom that if my mother would buy the shoes, the teacher would teach me. I still remember going to the Payless at the mall to pick out those shoes three decades ago.

Tying shoes was not the easiest of lessons. This was done while my classmates ate breakfast and lunch in the cafeteria and that was many times a privilege to do so. But there were many tearful moments when that teaching was occurring. I even remember one time having to cry out my lunch number so my lunch could be brought to the classroom. But do you know what? I eventually learned how to tie shoes. While they are not my preference of footwear today because it is a struggle, it indeed is a lesson that has been incorporated into many other tools of living independently or in the workplace such as tying a garbage bag, for example.

While I could remember many educational memories, those are the two biggest life lessons of the remainder of that school year that helped mold me toward being the person that I am today.