I attended Marion Hill School for grades 4, 5, and 6. My fourth grade teacher was Mrs. Shuller. My fifth grade teacher was Mrs. Blinn. My sixth grade teacher was a teacher right out of college, Miss Milner.

Fourth grade was a turning point in my early education. Up to then I had been a very good student. I always had some of the highest grades in my class. I loved learning. After fourth grade and through high school graduation I lost the love of learning. Mrs. Shuller was an older teacher. We were her last group before she retired. Also, the year she was our teacher, her husband was dying of some disease. She was a nervous wreck. Once or twice every day she’d have us put our heads down on the desk and close our eyes so she could take some pills. I guess the pills were for her nerves. She was very irritable most of the time and she yelled a lot. Learning certainly wasn’t fun with her. We never knew when she would suddenly get angry and start yelling.

One day she gave us a homework assignment. The next day she called some students to the board to write things from their homework. All of the students in the first group “did it wrong.” She started yelling that they hadn’t listened when she gave the homework assignment and that’s why they did it wrong. The truth was that we had done it the way she told us but she forgot what she told us. She called some other students to the board and they also had it wrong. She was very angry at this point. She then asked how many students had done the homework the wrong way and most of the students raised their hands. I had done it “wrong” but I didn’t raise my hand because I knew what she would do. She told everyone who had done it “wrong” to come to the front of the room for one swat with the paddle (yes, corporal punishment was allowed back then). I was trembling but I avoided the spanking. Then she explained how to do the homework again (of course this was different from how she’d explained it the day before). Then she told everyone to hand in the homework papers. OH NO! I knew I was in big trouble then. That night I wrote a little letter telling her that I and most of the students had done the homework the way she explained and that was why most of us had done it “wrong.” I then did the homework the new way, but not just once…I did the same assignment three times to show her I was serious about doing my homework and doing it correctly.

The next morning I went into the classroom and went straight to her desk to put my “special homework” there before class started. She was out in the hallway at the time. As I laid the papers on her desk I saw a note she had written that said, “Spank David for lying about his homework.” Now I was really terrified. She came into the room and sat at her desk. She picked up the homework I had put there and read my letter. She looked like she was going to cry. She didn’t spank me. Later in the day she apologized to the whole class for spanking so many students the day before. She said that when she read my letter and had looked back over the events of the day before she realized so many students wouldn’t have done the homework wrong the same way.

Still, I lived in fear of going to her class every day. I developed stomach problems that year. My parents took me to the doctor because I continued to complain about my stomach hurting almost every morning before school. The doctor determined it was just nerves. It wasn’t until I had been in the military for about six years and started taking college classes at night that I discovered my love of learning again. But, that’s a story for another post.