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The Extra Little Girl

Today for your reading pleasure, I direct you to: The Grownups Wanted Us Dead, where you can read about:

The Extra Little Girl

I moved in the middle of 1st grade. I remember standing in the doorway of my new classroom, Gram’s hand clenched in mine. The desks formed a perfect square – the same number across as down. The teacher’s name was Mrs. Baker. Soon I would no longer have a name.

Quilly is the pseudonym of Charlene L. Amsden, who lives on The Big Island in Hawaii. When she is not hanging out with Amoeba, she is likely teaching or sewing. Or she could be cooking, taking photographs, or even writing. But if she's not doing any of that, she's probably on Facebook or tinkering with her blog.

12 Comments

  1. That teacher deserves a slap right across the cheek. I volunteer for that job. You are no extra little girl, sweet Quilly!
    I moved school a lot when I was little and it was always teh most horrifying part, to enter teh new schhol, teh new classroom and everybody watching you, measuring you up and down. Terrifying. I am glad your gram was there to hold your hand!
    hugs, lots of them!

  3. Minka — as a teacher I try to remember the things I learned in her classroom. ALL of my students have names – -whatever name they choose to be called — and I work on pronouncing it right. I also make certain I speak to everyone personally every day.

  6. Nessa is right… Gram did indeed kick ass! The more I hear about her and learn of her the more I’m convinced she is a big part of why we’re a family of strong women.

  8. I am really glad that my experience as “the new girl” in elementry school was much nicer. Still very weird, but at least my teacher made me feel very welcomed and helped me with adjusting to my new enviroment.

  9. Wow, what a story Quill. I cannot believe that woman was a teacher but it always seems to happen where we get teachers who are not good at it at all! Thank God for your Grandma.

    I had a teacher(6th gr) who gave everyone nicknames and expected us to do things we thought were impossible…to this day, he was my favorite teacher. I wrote him a letter about 20 years later and told him how much he meant to me…he wrote back, too!

  10. Everybody needs a name. But isn’t it odd that when we come to the internet we spend as much thought into hiding that name as the person did in giving it to us.

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