Kindergarten: You Might Get Lost

I wrote this for my Ap Composition Class. I got good reviews from my peers.

Kindergarten: Careful You Might Get Lost

Stay in school, do well, and everything will be fine. That’s what my mother always told my sister and I. I followed those rules day in and day out. I wanted to be a success in her eyes, but I never hit those high marks. I didn’t get the straight A’s that my counterpart sibling got. 

I was always the kid hiding in the mist, away from sight and mind. Trying to just get by with whatever I could get. Neglected no, equally appreciated not entirely sure. Back then I was fairly sure that I wasn’t. I had imaginary friends, because I could never play with my real friends, and had an illusive mind to boot. That was all I could do at that time, because being six years old, you’re still labeled as a kid with no perks of being baby-ed and the stigma of not being mature enough to play with the “big kids”.

It was tough being a youngun. Kindergarten was also another problem that I had to go up against as a youngun. Fortunately, this grade from my scholastic learning was where I learned most of my life lessons. It probably was ten times harder than Ivy League collegiate schooling.  Back then, I didn’t know what reading, mathematics, science, or a lady breaking your heart was. It was a time of learning how to do anything and everything. My class had to use handwriting books, that people either were really good or were, like myself, terrible at. If you were the latter, like myself, you had to deal with the teacher always looking over your shoulder trying to help you, and it never helped because Scribe Susie over on the corner of your table had flawless handwriting. I always tried to hide my writing book from her. Never worked, she always told me how to cross my t’s and dot my i’s. I disliked those books, but they did help out with my handwriting, by telling me. Computers are your friends, try to get good at using them.

Grammar… I didn’t know what the teacher meant by that, I thought it was a pastry I didn’t know about. She kept talking about organization and making sure that you keep everything meticulous. Which didn’t help with my definition, since to make pastries you need to keep everything organized and meticulous. 

I also didn’t know of the mysterious things were called sentences. At the time, I barely knew how to write letters let alone write words in sequences called sentences. It was hard enough to use the handwriting books, but this writing crossed the line. I tried pleading with the teacher saying that this was unfair to us children to do this “fun activity”. My efforts to push her to stop this flagrant misuse of power failed and she still pursued with her ideas that this was a fun activity. It was and it brought upon my strong passion of writing.

Bathroom breaks were also an importance for me to learn. Nobody was going to wear diapers and neither was I. A wise friend told me this, “If you get caught wearing diapers, or have to have the grandma’s assigned to the room accompany you to the bathroom; you will never ever hear the end of that for years”. Making me have to learn on the fly of how people use the restroom; from the little league bathrooms in school and playgrounds, to the major league restrooms in football stadiums and restaurants. Learning how to use the bathroom was a long three week process. In those three grueling weeks, I learned how to use the bathroom effectively and efficiently with 100 percent success rate. Unfortunately, there was one thing I never learned. This is only for guys. I never learned from the Major Leagues, what the flap thing was for on the Boy and Men underwear. I still don’t know. Seems pointless.

Math was also a bother, that logic of adding together 2 + 2, was intense. You also had to learn multiple tricks: the coin trick, the multiplicity trick, the paper trick, looking on the smartest kid in the room’s paper (which was mainly me most of the time), asking the teacher for help, etc. I was in a battlefield with numbers because addition was a monster that wouldn‘t go away. 

A week after we learned addition I remember hearing the kindergarten teacher saying to the whole class in a cheerful voice, “You all were doing such a fantastic job, I would like you all to try subtraction. It’s like adding, but instead of getting more, you take them away instead.” 

I might’ve been alone, but adding was tough enough and throwing in this “subtraction” was absurd. I was thinking about asking to not learn about this subtraction. I eventually threw that thought away. I knew teacher would not be happy if I was complaining whenever something new arose. When we started subtraction, one of the first questions we got was, if you have five cookies and your pal Jimmy wants two cookies, how many do you have after? I thought intensely about this question, and responded with: Um… Five cookies? Maybe I’ll take one of his cookies? I don’t know, he’s not getting any of mine because he’s mean. 

I wasn’t giving him any cookies because these cookies were my prized possessions. He never shared his trucks with me, so why should I give him some cookies he doesn‘t know how to share?. Besides, who ever wants less of anything? Other than when you have poisonous substances or hydrofluoric acid inside your veins. Do not get the idea I didn’t share, I was very generous. Jimmy wasn‘t generous, and he was mean. All the little kids, who didn’t say anything, agreed with me.  Despite the disputes with the problems, I eventually got the basics of math and was set for a couple of days. 

The real thing that hit me hard was learning how to read. Reading was dumb to me at the time. I asked the teacher, “Why are we learning how to read?” It puzzled me because I knew people in class who could barely speak without having them trip over their own tongue.

She answered, “William, that is a good question. Reading makes it easier for you to talk, and reading helps make your brain big.”

I mused back, “What’s a brain?” 

The teacher told me, possibly the entire class, that the brain was the thing that makes you smarter. I still didn’t understand her, but the teacher did know everything, which was a philosophy I used until my sixth grade math teacher told the class she didn’t know what she was doing.

Teacher passed out a ten page book. It was the first time I’ve ever seen the insides of these foreign pieces of paper called “books”. The first book I read was titled The Farmer. My first glances at this so called book left me with a look of confusion. My facial expression is best represented by my seven year old friend, Stewart, when he said, “William? Why does your face look like mine when I suck on too many lemons?” My face was stuck in that frozen proportion. I perplexed by these lines on the page and what the picture in the background. I liked the background, just not the lines. The background had drawings of pigs, dogs, a scruffy old man, and other barnyard animals that I didn’t know. Roosters? Cows? I didn’t think they were in that book, because the teacher didn’t want us to read anything too complex. Which was absurd because Timothy and Bethany, the fabled geniuses, in my class were already reading Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets. It took me three weeks to read that “level 1” book The Farmer. I didn’t believe that was a level one book at all. When the teacher asked the class who found this book easy to read Timothy was the only one to raise his hand. Bethany, I presumed didn’t raise her hand because she didn’t want to seem overzealous or flamboyant in her studies of the Shakespeare literary difficulty book that was The Farmer. We eventually had to move on and read the level two and level three books. It got even worse for me. It took me long chunks of time, but I eventually got to finishing and could easily read those foreign materials called, books.

The pinnacle of my problematic kindergarten learning experience was arts and crafts. Considering that my handwriting looked like a caveman trying to write Chinese with a boulder, arts and crafts weren’t going to go well. The first thing when we started the arts and crafts unit was to draw something we love. Anything. Anything which you found enjoyment in or are happy with. I wanted to draw my Nintendo 64, but that wasn’t happening. Every time I started drawing my Nintendo 64, it looked like a cross of a paper box and a dinosaur. I then tried to move my focus to draw a lollipop. I didn’t know what a lollypop looked like… I just kinda ate them. My lollypop ended up looking like an asymmetrical trapezoid with uneven sides and curvy lines. My classmates and I had to share the picture we drew. My classmates showed their drawings: family, friends, games, pets, and Nintendo 64s. Then came my turn to show my picture of an awkward looking trapezoid. I got many mixed messages. Most of them being, “what the…?” or “I’m confused”. I didn’t know what to say about my terrible drawing. I casually strolled back to my seat and threw my picture away when nobody was looking. I looked back at my first picture and part of me said that I should’ve showed this instead. From there on, I told myself I would always put my best work up no matter what, even if it was pointless at times. I can’t live with second best if I can attain first.

Kindergarten was a tough year for me. It was a time of learning and tribulation. I perservered through numerous problems. Each of those problems making me a better person and teaching me the beauty of perseverance. It’s was also through these multiple encounters of new experiences I learned new things which I ended up enjoying. Also learning how to pick up things quick to do them fast and effectively. Finally, I learned you always should try your best and never second guess yourself if you believe in it. Because like Mom said, “Stay in school, do well, and everything will be fine,” I did exactly and everything so far has been nothing short of enjoyable.

Author's Note

Have fun reading, and I know people who read essays are most likely going to get something boring, not me but that's because I can't write without throwing a joke to ease up on the seriousness. Syntax-Help please.