VAWN’S WORLD

Failing Moments Rise (Paper Three: Final)

Amanda Vaughan

English 319

Essay 3

Word count: 1,555

Failing Moments Rise

My mind went blank, panic set in. I read the assignment on the board over and over. Why do you want to be in this class? What do you hope you will learn from it? I don’t know! I want out of this class! Why am I taking a College English class in High School? I don’t even know if I want to go to college.  As my mind raced so did my pencil, as I was unconsciously tapping it on the desk top. My feet and legs bounced up and down, it seemed like my legs were ready to run from the class as well. I sat there for an hour knowing what I wanted to say not what I needed to. I needed to say, to learn to become a better writer. Finally the bell rang, the teacher screamed orders that the essay was due tomorrow and that even though this essay was the first one it played a MAJOR role in our grade.  I had taken a class from this same teacher once before and she was brutal. Mrs. Jones, a wicked old woman, enjoyed torturing students it seemed. She had no problem with making students faces turn red with embarrassment for not knowing the answer. I hated that feeling. I never knew the answer under pressure. She was now turning into my worst enemy. She held my future in her hands. If I fail this class I won’t go to college. I finished my day and was in no hurry to go home. When I eventually made it home and of course my parents were there to greet me with the usual “get your homework done”.  So I decided I would bull shit the essay, it was better than telling the truth about how I felt at this point. The next day I slouched in my chair, a bright orange chair connected to a small piece of wood that had curse words all over it. She walked in the room dressed in her usual white panty hose and jumper, her hair getting grayer every day. She collected my essay, I watched her place it in her left hand slowly getting everyone else’s papers, but somehow I managed to keep my eye on my paper, it was like a red scarlet paper. Regret now set in.

My parents grew up in the small town of Fort Morgan, Colorado. My parents were high school sweet hearts. They meet through my mother’s dad. He was a police officer in Brush, a small town north of Fort Morgan. My dad worked for my grandpa back before they even knew he would have that title. My mother had a hard time growing up; she was young when her mother and father divorced. She went to live with her mom Judy, my grandmother. By the time my mom was fifteen she had a job and was supporting herself. She bought her own food, school supplies, and paid any fun things she wanted to do. She used to tell me of how she would work late at night at the only Pizza Hut in town, and how dad would pick her up since it was on the highway. He always took care of her. There was one year when she could not save up enough money to get a prom dress. She was devastated her senior prom and she could not go for lack of a dress. My dad surprised her with a beautiful white ruffled dress with a blue satin sash across the waist. They were perfect for each other. Grandma was a different woman back then, I am told. It seemed like her focus was all on herself. During the time my mom was paying for everything acting like an adult even though she was in high school, my grandmother bought herself a new convertible. Eventually my parents graduated from High School and got married. Unfortunately they never went to college they only received a high school diploma. They were two smart individuals who could have gone far if they had to opportunity. Money was an issue. My father took a couple of courses at the local Community College; however it did not last long. He had gotten a job offer at the Police Department in Longmont, Colorado. They began their lives there; my father with his dream job and my mother with a baby on the way, me.

Growing up with my parents was fun. We were big on family time. But when it came to school it was hard for me and them to find common ground. My mother was very smart, especially when it came to math. She has worked at a bank either as a teller or in mortgage business. But my father, he and I are the exact same. He and I struggle when it comes to school. But he was really good at trying to help me to understand it…at least when I was in elementary school. When it came to learn how to add or subtract he would buy M&Ms and use them to help. He would lay out three blue ones and four green ones and ask how many blue and green M&Ms there are. If I got the answer right I got to eat the M&Ms. This routine lasted a couple weeks, eventually it died. I eventually lost my parents help around long division and sentence structures. I would bring home sheets of homework where I had to either pick out the verbs, nouns, pronouns, and adjectives I would ask for help but they always said they would not remember that and that I was smart enough to figure it out. My attention fell on math and science. No matter how hard I tried or how hard I studied I could not figure it out. I could only retain 50% of the information I needed to for a test…resulting in horrible grades…resulting in no social life due to always being grounded. In elementary school I went to a Baptist school were math and quoting the Bible was the only thing that mattered. I remember once in fifth grade we had a lesson on how to write in cursive that lasted a month long.

School frustrated me I had not found one subject that I liked or that I was good at. Eventually I gave up in school; eighth grade was where I stopped caring. I was sick of learning I did not want to anymore. School and I were the worst of enemies. My parents did not know what to do with me, they grounded me, gave me extra chores, they even bought practice books that were two inches thick and they made me do pages everyday on top of my homework. I resented having to do them I felt like my parents were calling me dumb I tried to have a good attitude about it but I couldn’t; I would look up the answers in the back of the book when I needed a break from school, both from the real one and the one created.

High school came and it was tons different. Math got a little easier; I had three amazing teachers who understood my frustration. They understood I was trying and that sometimes I needed different ways of teaching in order to make something click in my brain. Those teachers doors were always open to me for help. Science went okay, chemistry better than biology. History was easy, the teachers went slowly and projects were involved, it seemed like more of a social hour than a class. English was all about reading novels, writing journal entries, and learning about the Greek gods. But I still had not found a subject that I was happy with. I did not give up in High School I was at least having fun with my teachers.

As I sat in that orange chair the next day after turning in my paper I sat there with my heart racing. I do not want to be grounded my senior year! I have way to many plans for school to ruin it for me again. She went through the entire class without passing back the papers as if she knew we were all on edge about them. She finally passed them back. An F! I had never seen so many red marks on a paper before, but as I looked around the room EVERYONE got F’s. Even the straight A+ students! She told us that she looked for every possible grammar error and that by the end of the semester, if we truly cared, we would have them fixed. Weeks went by and we had read two novels and written papers on them. My grades gradually got better. She helped us with college applications, entrance essays, and even how to properly mail them. The class was starting to get fun. And every time I got a paper back with a better grade it made me feel like I was actually doing something I liked. We did one last project, a research paper. I picked my topic and started to work. I focused all my time on this one paper, wondering just how good I could really write. I presented all the facts, organized the paragraphs, used my transition sentences like we learned. For once in my WHOLE educational career I was having fun and enjoying a subject! I was not afraid to turn in that project, I did so with pride. It was like turning in a piece of me I never knew I had. I still have that essay with the big red A on it and the report card that had the same next to the subject. She informed us at the end of class that everyone got F’s on their first papers to show them that they always need to work on writing even if you think you’re great at it. And then she looked at me, as if to tell me not that I was great at it but that I could be great.  

I think this class gave me the motivation I needed in order to take that huge leap and go to college. I started my first semester as a college student, scared as hell but also excited. Surprisingly I did well! I was proud of myself, I never wanted to go home to my parents and if I had to I could not wait to go back to my dorm room. I felt independent and free. But now I am realizing that the independent and free feeling also comes with a price, adulthood. I am still learning little lessons along the way…such as even though I want to drop out of college right now I know that next semester is a new chance. I can start fresh with new classes and new professors. It is relatively exciting. This semester I learned that even though I feel stupid I am not and that sometimes getting an F on a paper only makes you stronger for the next.