Fifth Grade Torture

Sami Hills
1B
Ms. A
Fifth grade torture
Here I am starting another gruesome year of school; it’s like being a cow walking into the slaughter house. Even better now is the fact that it’s high school, the years that everyone remembers throughout their entire adulthood. I walk into my first period expecting it to go just as it always does; painfully boring. I sit down as the bell rings; the teacher immediately starts yelling about the amount of noise happening in the room. No one quiets down; as usual this place is just like a zoo. He raises his voice even louder than he originally was, now standing as though he is a belching ogre. He begins the torture by assigning us a twenty page packet due at the end of class. All of a sudden I go back to my fifth grade year…
My mom had heard excellent reviews on this teacher’s reputation for her excellent test scores. She decided that she was going to sign me up for Ms.Gelas’s class for my fifth grade year. Later on that week I walked into class all gung-ho for this teacher, I couldn’t wait to finally meet her. On the first day of class she asked us all to stand up and say our names as individuals; so cliché. However along with her making us say our name we had to recite our times tables. I then felt it, that pit in my stomach and sweaty palms. I didn’t know my times tables yet, I was only in the fifth grade!
“Sami will you please recite your 6’s for us?” - She said in an almost mocking manner. I immediately responded, “I’m sorry but I don’t know any of my times tables.” She smiled calmly almost too calmly; like a lion waiting to pounce on its prey. “Every time that I get annoyed with you guys or you do something wrong I will make you run a mile or more.” She said this almost like a drill sergeant in the army. Almost five minutes later after asking these fresh fifth graders about their times tables, she grew very annoyed and screamed for us to run outside and run a mile. Being a young child running in circles was like traveling across a never ending sea. As I rolled around on my last lap I knew that after this I would grow to strongly hate her; and that I did.
When the everlasting year was over and I just couldn’t wait to get out of her class and to just have fifth grade over with in general. Then we took our end of the year tests and compare our scores from now and the beginning of the year. To my surprise I improved dramatically. Not only did I improve greatly, but I got a hundred on almost all of our tests. I could now recite my times tables as though I was born with that intelligence already. Having my test scores be outstanding my parents were so very proud of me, shoot, I was just as proud with myself.
I snap back to reality and I remember all of the hard work and dedication that I had in the fifth grade. I look down at my unfilled packet and smile; of course I can do this. I can do anything that I set my mind to with the right amount of self-discipline like I had in fifth grade. Thanks to Ms.Gelas I know have the strength to get anything done. I finish the horrid packet much earlier than all the rest of my fellow students. “Education is the most powerful weapon in which you can use to change the world.” -Unknown

Submitted by Anonymous

Strength