Elementary School

Elementary school was fun and scary time for me. As a shy kid I had some anxiety about going to school. I repeated Kindergarten primarily because of my social development. My early schooling experience in California played a foundational role in the values that I would develop as an adult. We learned songs like Kumbaya and Baby Beluga. I remember learning about sharing from the story of the Stone Soup. We played with dreidels and sang the song associated with it. As I got older and more conservative the lessons I learned as a young child were somewhat forgotten, but I'm glad that I eventually rediscovered the powerful lessons of kindness, unity, respect for others, and peace that were taught to me as a young child.

As good as my memory tends to be I have no memories of 1st Grade whatsoever.I don't remember who my teacher was, classmates, or anything. I don't think I have any class pictures of 1st Grade either. So that means either there is a conspiracy at work, something extremely traumatizing occurred and I am repressing it all, or most likely it was extremely uneventful and boring.

2nd Grade wasn't very notable either. I remember my teacher Ms. Moore. She was really nice. I remember of focusing a lot of learning about time and the calendar. It rained a lot that year I recall. That's pretty much it for 2nd Grade.

3rd Grade was extremely important for me. My teacher was Mr. Rhodes. I had never even heard of a male elementary teacher before. He was really awesome. He encouraged our creativity and we did a lot of art projects. This played a role as I grew and developed confidence in my creative abilities. We had a pair of rats as class that we were allowed to take home and care for. I really enjoyed the responsibility. During the year we worked on a service project and we were the "See" Team,  we helped raise money to help blind people receive and train seeing eye dogs. This helped teach me the value of serving others and I remember meeting a blind man who talked with us kids about his life. This helped me develop appreciation for those that have unique lives and challenges. This probably played a role later in college when I would study American Sign Language and developed friendships with Deaf people. 

Also in 3rd Grade I became best friends with a boy named Jimmy. He was a bigger kid, which was good for me because I got teased and picked on a lot. Jimmy was a member of Jehovah's Witnesses. Looking back on it years later, it is kind of funny that the Mormon and the Jehovah's Witness would become such good friends. He told me about how he didn't celebrate his birthday or other holidays like Christmas. I thought this was kind of weird but didn't think too much about it. When I look back on it, my time with Jimmy was the first experience I recall realizing there was differences in the way that people believe or that there were really other belief systems outside of my family life.

So have you had any interesting experiences in your elementary schooling that have increased your moral attributes or taught you about other religious traditions?