Leaves and Lessons

We had a fairly robust rainstorm last night, with plenty of wind. As I drove down Rowland Boulevard this morning, yellow leaves from the mulberry trees made neat circles on the green lawns and lay in runnels along the gutters and between traffic lanes, like snow drifts seen through amber ski goggles. The fallen leaves and the red of the Japanese maple in our front yard both reminded me of one of my favorite experiences at Strawberry Point Elementary.

It’s funny that I remember so little of actual instruction in grammar school. I am sure I must have learned something. But what I do recall is all the stuff in between – dodge ball during P.E., the clamor of children’s voices in the hall, being read to by Mr. Womack, our principal, playing Heads down Seven Up during rainy day recesses, and listening to the National School Broadcast.

I can’t speak for subsequent generations, but when I was in first through fifth grade, back in the 1960s, our teachers would often give us a break from learning. We would draw pictures while classical music, provided by the NSB played over the tinny speaker that was mounted high on the wall in each classroom. Now that I am at the other end of the adult-child spectrum, I realize that it wasn’t just us kids who were getting a break – teachers need some downtime, too.

My favorite thing to draw was autumn leaves, like the ones I saw this morning. I would make a brown tree trunk, add some branches and then spend the rest of my time coloring yellow and orange and red foliage. I sometimes even added a few green ones that hadn’t turned color yet, just to keep it real.

Often, we had a theme to guide our artwork. My favorite was Columbus Day. Spanish caravels with square-rigged masts, lots of rigging and billowing white sails were a specialty of mine. A banner flying atop the highest mast completed the picture.

Wait a minute. Now that I think about it, there was one part of actual instruction that I do remember – the SRA reading program. In our second grade classroom, we had a rainbow library of color-coded booklets, not unlike those multi-colored leaves I loved so well. The competition among the top readers was fierce as we worked our way up from level to level and completed the accompanying, color-coded worksheets. I was a pretty voracious reader, but even I couldn’t keep up with my best friend Janet Sullivan.

The developers of the program were clever to give each level a different hue. You could see at a glance how you were progressing compared to your classmates. I suppose the downside was that if you were mired at a lower level, everyone knew about it. But that didn’t concern me. As I answered the grammar, spelling and vocabulary questions, I kept an eye on Janet. I always seemed to be a shade behind.

I can still remember finally making it to the purple booklets– the highest in the reading set. I gritted my teeth as Janet finished first, but soon after I was done, too. I marked the achievement off in my progress book and looked around. I don’t know what I expected to happen, but a ticker-tape parade with me riding in a presidential convertible seemed the most likely possibility. With the distinctive sound of second graders languidly turning pages in the background, I approached Miss Edson’s desk and asked what I should do next, waiting with bated breath. She pointed to the bookshelf and indicated that I should pick out something and continue reading.

Continue reading? Just any old book? How could I? That would be like telling an Olympic gold medalist to go play on the jungle gym, just for fun. I wasn’t ready to retire from the world of competitive reading. Not yet. Not while I was in top form. I hadn’t even tested positive for comprehension-enhancing substances (though, admittedly, they did find miniscule traces of wax from the milk cartons in my urine sample). In short, I just wasn’t ready for this unexpected hiatus.

Fortunately, a new competition arose within the month. We embarked on a class-wide Let’s-see-how-many-books-you-can-read-this-semester Thingie. It would have to do.

Alas, despite starting strong, I soon lost heart. I couldn’t see the point in just “putting up numbers.” Where was the validation? How could you tell if someone was merely checking books out of the library and pretending to read them? I had my suspicions, though I could never act on them without hard proof, which was nearly impossible to come by in those days. The era of irrefutable out-of-competition Vocab testing was still decades away. Without assurance that I was reading against competitors who were “clean,” I slowly trailed off.

Thankfully, I had an oasis of solace that I had forgotten in the chaos of the Second Grade Reading Scandal, as it would be known in later years. I went back to drawing sailing ships and autumn leaves as I listened to classical music provided by our good friends at the National School Broadcast. I was at peace with my crayons in hand; reading could wait.