Studying English was so boring. I can speak it, what is there to study? Literature? What even is that? Reading books from hundreds of years ago? They don't relate to me. I hated History even more. It was my worst subject and I almost failed it twice in college. I improved my F to a D somehow - my History teacher probably just felt bad for me - and that was the last History class I took.
It's kind of interesting because I'm good at numbers - so you'd think I'd be able to remember the dates certain things happened. But I couldn't connect the date to the event. European invaders and dictators, wars over lines on a map, why was it called a civil war when there was nothing civil about it? I often joke that the only war I ever remember was the War of 1812. It wasn't until I read Tim Marshall's Prisoners of Geography that I started to understand a bit more about why things happened the way they did and take a bit of an interest in it.
English was just, like, blah. But I was good at it. Maybe that's why it was boring. I read a lot of books as a kid. All of the Goosebumps. Shel Silverstein, Dr. Seuss, Lord of the Flies, the one where the kid takes a boat to the island because he's the leader's son and comes back with boar's teeth around his neck. I think I came in 2nd to Bobbie Elliott in Accelerated Reader one year. I tried to skim War & Peace and take the test at the last minute to get the 76 points or whatever it was worth, but it was way too hard.
I remember most of my English teachers. Was it English back then? Maybe Reading/Writing - can't remember. I think it was Mrs. Pruitt in 2nd or 3rd grade. Mrs. Bryant was somewhere around 4th - 6th, whose shoes squished when she walked and she'd always tell us that "life is about choices, y'all." Except she had the Southernest of Southern accents and would say "cho-ee-ces". Three syllables. It's a thing Southerners do - adding and subtracting syllables. She moved from elementary school to high school when I was just about to leave so I got to see her in the hallways again. She was a sweet lady who I'm pretty sure if you took a blood sample you'd just see Southern charm, love, and collard greens.
Thomasville City Schools were labeled an "Exemplary" school when I was there. The administrators were proud - as they should be, I guess. Except the principal would mispronounce "exemplary" - every. TIME. Assemblies, morning announcements, any gathering; he'd say, "exemplar-ary." Had to add that extra syllable. I hated it. Dude, seriously? Ex-emp-lah-ree.
How was I supposed to learn proper English when people around me are combining Math and English, adding and subtracting syllables and letters, willy-nilly? They'd even swap letters like wrasslin' instead of wrestling. I listened to kids say wrasslin' for actual years before I figured out what they were saying.
Then we got to high school. The most angsty of teenage angsty years. I was too cool, extremely bored, and fell asleep on a regular basis in English class - was it Mr. Covington? Who knows. I slept most days. Like that kid from Sideways Stories from Wayside Heights. There was a low shelf on the wall with stacks of textbooks; I'd stack them up behind me so they would hold my head up while I nodded off in class. I was Peter Parker: smart but lazy.
Anyway, I wrote well, knew grammar and spelling, and passed the tests. At the time I didn't know what I was destined for, but it involved getting out of the 'Ville, and doing something cool with cars or space or sports.
I definitely didn't think I'd ever be sitting on my couch writing a blog. Blogs weren't a thing when I was in high school and besides, who would pay money for someone to write? In fact, the first time I ever even heard of a blog was in a junior-level Finance class when we had a teacher who talked about podcasts and blogs. I didn't think anything of it back then.
My freshman-year ENGL 1100 professor LOVED me. English Composition I. It was a 3pm class, so I'd had plenty of time to sleep off my hangovers. The professor was a young black man and we got along really well. I contributed in class, wrote creatively, and aced the class. He gave me solid pointers and loved my creativity.
Conversely, my ENGL 1200 professor HATED me. Dennis f-ing Turner. King Asshole who messed up my road to redemption via his subjective review of analytical essays. The course description is "critical reading, library research, and research writing, including analytical and argumentative writing."
I'm a free-flow writer, man, don't constrain my thoughts inside your little box.
I escaped with a D. And I was so broken about it, so distraught, that I didn't even want to try and improve the grade. He graded all my papers harshly, but I distinctly remember writing a paper about a short story of someone who had been driving along and there was a refrigerator or some large appliance in the road. The driver maybe hit the appliance or swerved and maybe had some sort of out-of-body experience. I wrote about how it was a metaphor for something in the driver's life. Some obstacle they couldn't get around and how they had to go through it. I don't remember exactly, but I thought it was a damn good analysis of the story, and - it was MY INTERPRETATION.
You don't get to be subjective when you're grading someone's interpretation! But that's what he did. He told me my interpretation was WRONG. Are you kidding me? You're supposed to grade on how the paper is constructed. Did I analyze the story? Did I compose a compelling argument? I can still feel the anger boiling inside of me when I got the paper back and read through his red marks. I marched to his office and everything else is a blur, but I remember being mad.
I harbor an internal hate towards this man that can't be put into words. I have looked him up once or twice over the years, but I just found his RateMyProfessor page and it's a gold mine of complaints. He has a 2.8/5 rating - which would be a failing grade - here's some select quotes for funsies:
"Mr. Turner was awful. He was so rude and unpleasant that now, 3 years later, when I see him on campus, I will walk out of the way just to avoid him."
"What is this guy on? I have a hard time taking him seriously when I feel like he is high all the time."
Looking back, getting my grade back in that class was one of those moments in life that didn't seem like much, but it affected me. To this day I struggle to give my interpretation of something if I'm not confident in it. I feel like someone is going to rip my analysis to shreds and tell me that's not the way I should have interpreted it.
I wasn't sure quite where I was going when I started this blog.
But I guess it's just a glimpse into how something small can derail you or set you off on a whole different course.
It sucks to know that someone like Dennis Turner can have that profound of an impact on your life. Maybe I was going to be a great analytical writer. Maybe I could have gone on to have a successful career researching and providing analytical insight. Maybe some other professor would have thought, "Wow, this guy is a great writer and I should mentor him."
Within the past two years I've started doing analysis and recommendations for various things. Technology, operations, management. And I'm pretty good at it. And I'm going to keep doing it. I'll mix it with my free-flowing thought process that guides me toward an answer that I may or may not be sure of at the beginning, but once I start writing, it eventually manifests itself.
Don't be afraid to do the same. Look back and think about if there was something you wanted to do but someone or something dissuaded you - do you still want to do it? If there was something you thought you weren't good at, go back and try again. If someone ripped your paper to shreds or gave you a bad mark when you thought you'd done a good job, maybe it's not you.
Some people get put in positions they don't deserve. Just because Dennis got a degree in English doesn't mean he has the ability to transfer that knowledge or effectively teach - let alone be in a position to tell others that they're not good at something. Magic Johnson was a great basketball player but a terrible coach.
Mrs. Staton was a good teacher - she was passionate about it and did her best to transfer her knowledge and love to her students.
Life really is about choices.
The choices you make when something doesn't go your way, like deciding to give up and take a crap grade instead of going back in to try again. If I could go back and retake ENGL 1200, I'd ace the shit out of it.
Interpret THAT, Dennis.
P.S. Here's the lovely Mrs. Staton - a longer version is on Thomasville City Schools website and I just took the best part of it:
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