Third Grade Memories

This week marks Misty's re-entry into the workforce. She has already started getting her classroom ready for her students to come back officially in just under two weeks. This year Emma will be in the third grade. I am not ready to talk about the fact that Elizabeth will be going to Kindergarten this fall and will not be accompanying me to the church each morning anymore. At least I still have one baby to take with me, but I am afraid she will throw a fit everyday for months because she will no longer have a sister to play with in the afternoons.

I got to thinking about my experience as a third grader. Since I went to a Christian school, my experience was quite different than what Emma's will be like. Granted, she goes to a public school that acts like a private school, but it is really different than mine, especially third grade. Over the course of my life at Grace Christian Academy, all of my teachers were evangelicals, usually Baptist or Assemblies of God and we had Bible class as part of our curriculum in every grade. I think this was one of the most significant aspects of my education, and likely the most thorough part as well. I will leave that one alone.

Back to third grade. My class was small and, between the two third grade classes it seems like there were no new students in either class, until about halfway through the school year, a new boy named Charles Fitzpatrick joined our class. This was kind of a coup, we thought, to get the new kid. He was about eight feet tall in comparison to the rest of us, and since we all knew each other forever, he was much more interesting than any of us. I remember we had this classroom in the back of the church. It was like a maze trying to get back there. There have been times since that I have had recurring dreams of walking through the church at night. Frightening. Anyway, my teacher, Mrs. Welch, was a chariskook. I really liked her and she tried to teach me not to rely on myself but to trust in the Lord. I guess she thought I had too much anxiety and was overworking myself. Seems like some things never change. I will never forget some of the things we did that year. I had a big birthday party at Showbiz Pizza and Charles Fitzpatrick stayed way too long because his mom had given him $10 for tokens and he was going to spend every one of them. We "wrote" a book about George Washington. We wrote a play about the Pilgrims and presented it. We made a plaster relief map of the Holy Land.

I will never forget that Mrs. Welch was the first person to tell us that if we did not behave we would suffer the consequences. I was scared to find out what those were. She was a crier, and really seemed to think we just might end up in hell if she did not intervene on our behalf. When asked if President Carter was a Christian, she replied: "Well, I think he is a carnal Christian." The worst possible fate, carnal. But Mrs. Welch also helped me get the first full-length copy of the Bible I ever had. It was one of those cheap imitation leather award Bibles. And it was the King James Version, of course. Granted, the NIV had only been available for a couple of years at that time and nobody used it. I loved that Bible. I used the map in the back to help make my relief map of the Holy Land.

I no longer have either, the map or the Bible, but I have my weirdly skewed memories. When I think about my growing up, it is hard to explain some of the odd things that occurred that we all thought were just a part of normal life. Prayer in class, sometimes followed by a child vomiting in the classroom. Lots of Bible talk, even end times talk. Scared me to death. It is a wonder that I ended up sane at all.

Truth is I am grateful for most of it, even the wacky stuff, because it set me up to look at the world in a certain way. I may not completely agree with that way of thought anymore, but it grounded me to an extent that I don't think I would have had if I had been somewhere else. It may not have been the most well-rounded educational environment, and I wish I had had more opportunities for artistic development in school (including, God forbid, secular music) rather than having to seek these opportunities elsewhere, but at the very least I knew the Bible when I left school. It prepared me to want more of the Word and to want to read it. By the time I graduated from high school I had already read the Bible through in its entirety four times.

So, thank you, Mrs. Welch, for guiding me on the path that has led me to where I am now. Oh God, I hope that does not make me carnal. Well, maybe just a little bit will be okay.

Peace.