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to Mrs. Wayman's Math Support and Resources!
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If
kids can't learn the way I teach, I must teach the
way they learn! |
The Poor Scholar
I am saddened to read an article like this.
I hope none of the kids I come in contact with feel like
a "Poor Scholar"
No, I'm not very good in school. This is my second year in
the seventh grade, and I'm bigger and taller than the other
kids. They like me alright, though, even if I don't say much
in the classroom because outside I can tell them how to do
a lot of things. They follow me around a lot and that sort
of makes up for what goes on in school.
I don't know why the teachers don't like me. They never have
very much. Seems like they don't think you know anything unless
they can name the book it came out of. I've got a lot of books
in my room at home-- books like Popular Science, Mechanical
Encyclopedia and the Sears and Wards catalogues--but I don't
very often just sit down and read them through like they make
us do in school. I use my books when I want to find something
out, like whenever Mom buys anything second-hand I look it
up in Sears or Wards first and tell her if she's getting stung
or not. I can use the index in a hurry.
In school, though, we've got to learn whatever is in the book
and I just can't memorize the stuff. Last year I stayed after
school every night for two weeks trying to learn the name
of the presidents. Of course, I knew some of them like Washington
and Jefferson and Lincoln, but there must have been thirty
altogether, and I never did get them straight.
I'm not too sorry, though, because the kids who learned the
presidents had to turn right around and learn all the vice-presidents.
I am taking the seventh grade over, but our teacher this year
isn't so interested in the names of the presidents. She has
us trying to learn the names of all the great American inventors.
I guess I just can't remember names in history. Anyway, this
year I've been trying to learn about trucks because my uncle
owns three and he says I can drive one when I am sixteen.
I already know the horsepower and number of forward and backward
speeds of twenty-six American trucks,some of them diesels,
and I can spot each make a long way off. It's funny how that
diesel works. I started to tell my teacher about it last Wednesday
in science class when the pump we were using to make a vacuum
in a bell jar got hot, but she said she didn't see what a
diesel engine had to do with our experiment on air pressure
so I just kept still. The kids seemed interested though. I
took four of them around to my uncle's garage after school
and we saw the mechanic, Gus, tear a big truck diesel down.
Boy, does he know his stuff!
I'm not very good in geography either. They called it economic
geography this year. We've been studying the imports and exports
of Chile all week, but I couldn't tell you what they are.
Maybe the reason is I had to miss school yesterday because
my uncle took me and his big trailer truck down state about
200 miles, and we brought almost 10 tons of stock to the Chicago
market. He had told me we were going, and I had to figure
out the highways to take and also the mileage. He didn't do
anything but drive and turn where I told him to. Was that
fun! I sat with a map in my lap and told him to turn south
or southeast, or some other direction. He made seven stops
and drove over 500 miles round trip. I'm figuring now what
his oil cost, and also the wear and tear of the truck-- he
calls it depreciations-- so we'll know how much we made.
I even write out all the bills and send letters to the farmers
about what their pigs and beef cattle brought at the stockyards.
I only made three mistakes in 17 letters last time, my aunt
said, all commas. She's been through high school and read
them over. I wish I could write school themes that way. The
last one I had to write was on"What a Daffodil Thinks
of Spring" and I just could'nt get going.
I don't do very well in school in arithmetic either. Seems
I just can't keep my mind on the problems. We had one the
other day like this:
"If a 57 foot telephone pole falls across a cement highway
so that 17 3/6 feet extend from one side and14 9/17 feet from
the other, how wide is the highway?"
That seemed to me like an awful silly way to get the width
of a highway. I didn't even try to answer it because it didn't
say whether the pole had fallen straight across or not.
Even in shop class I don't get very good grades. All of us
kids made a broom holder and a bookend this semester and mine
were sloppy. I just couldn't get interested.
Mom doesn't use a broom anymore with her new vacuum cleaner,
and all our books are in a bookcase with glass doors in the
family room. Anyway, I wanted to make an end gate for my uncle's
trailer, but the shop teacher said that meant using metal
and wood both, and I'd have to learn how to work with wood
first. I didn't see why, but I kept still and made a tie rack
at school and my dad doesn't even wear ties. I finished making
the tail gate after school in my uncle's garage. He said I
saved him ten dollars.
Government class is hard for me, too. I've been staying after
school trying to learn the "Articles of Confederation"
for almost a week, because the teacher said we couldn't be
good citizens unless we did. I really tried because I want
to be a good citizen. I did hate to stay after school though
because a bunch of us boys from the south of town have been
cleaning up the old lot across from Taylor's Machine Shop
to make a playground out of it for the little kids from the
Methodist home. I made the jungle gym from old pipe and the
guys made me "Grand Mogul" to keep the playground
going. We raised enough money collecting scrap this month
to build a wire fence clear around the lot.
Dad says I can quit school when I am sixteen, and I am sort
of anxious to because there are a lot of things I want to
learn how to do, and as my uncle says, I'm not getting any
younger.
Author unknown
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Mukilteo
School District
