5th Grade

To get to our local library from my house you must drive past the elementary school and the high school.  Thursday, on our way to "Library School" (preschool time at the library), I noticed the 5th graders outside at PE and it made me think back to my 5th grade year....what a year that was!

I had been attending one of the local elementary schools during my 4th grade year, but my mom could sense a change coming and decided to homeschool me for 5th grade.  (When I say "could sense a change" I mean it.  In my lifetime I have moved 24 times and I'm only in my 20's now - change happened ALOT in my parents home.) 

In November of that year, my parents took a church in Oklahoma and decided to enroll us kids in their local school.  The town we moved to had only 500 residents and 250 of them went to the only school there - 250 kids from kindergarten through 12th grade.  I think their graduating class that year had 5 students.  Not only the school was a big adjustment, but the culture was too.  The town was 3 miles off the Muskogee Creek Indian reservation and the majority of the townsfolk were Native American.  I myself am Native American, but you wouldn't recognize it in my features unless I told you. 

So, this "white" girl was the minority and believe me that everyone reminded me of it.  I was teased mercilessly.  I even had one older girl pin me up against a locker in the hall and threaten to beat the crap out of me - for no apparent reason.  She later confessed that she was jealous of my dad's relationship with me.  He came for lunch or recess at least once a week just to hang out with me and my little sister (because the school was so small, every grade had lunch and recess at the same time).  Her father had left her mom when the last of her small siblings was born and as soon as she came home each day, her mother would immediately leave - for whatever reason - and she was responsible for all the younger siblings, sometimes for days at a time.  The nearest "big" town was about 20 miles away and a lot of the townsfolk had to walk to get there (no exaggeration).  So, most just stayed overnight and came home the next day.

Anyway, in about January or February, I walked into class that morning to find the principle waiting at the teacher's desk for all students to show up.  I thought it a little odd that the teacher was no where to be seen and principle himself there instead of a substitute.  The principle gave the explanation when all the students arrived that the teacher had been injured while finishing grading papers at the school late the night before.  "Injured" was an understatement.  Come to find out sometime later, she had been involved in a drug deal gone bad on school grounds late at night.  She had been stabbed in the abdomen with a 3" knife and somehow made it to the hospital in the next "big" town before bleeding to death.  Needless to say, she wasn't going to be teaching again at that school - ever.  So, a substitute was going to be found soon.

Guess who they picked??  My Dad.  Yep.  My dad had all the credentials needed to fill in as my 5th grade teacher for the rest of the YEAR. Yes, the rest of the YEAR.  If I wasn't being teased enough already that sure made up for it.  Anytime I made a good grade on a test, I was teased that it was only because my dad was the teacher.  Anytime I made a bad grade on a test, I was teased that I must have done something at home to make him angry.

That year I couldn't get away from my dad.  He was filling in for many positions in the church until new workers could be found - so many positions, in fact, that he was almost the only person I ever saw at church!  That year, he was my  senior pastor, my sunday school teacher, my youth pastor, and my teacher at school!  I really love my dad a lot and it was a good thing cause it took a whole lotta love to survive 5th grade.

The other day I posted about God using family to teach us things. I guess I learned a lot other than school stuff in 5th grade. 
1)  The old saying, "sticks & stones..." just isn't true.
2)  Compassion is putting yourself in someone else's situation, then treating them like you would want to be treated.
3) Don't judge a person just by what they've always been and not see what they can be: I learned that my dad can be a jack of all trades!
4)  If you get into trouble at school - and your father is your teacher - you can bet that your gonna get it when you get home and that there is no way to twist the truth to make you look better cause your father was there to watch you get into trouble in the first place.
5)  Family is forever.  No matter how upset you get at them, they aren't going anywhere.  Might as well learn how to deal with it, love 'em, and forgive 'em.