My Life - Second Grade # 10

My second year of school was much like the first.  I wasn't quite as apprehensive or intimidated as I was during the first year, because I knew what to expect.  But, I still didn't like school.  I would rather be home playing with Tony or Buckshot.

The LaBolt School

The photo seen to the left is an actual picture of the LaBolt School as it then existed.  It looks like a bigger school than it actually was, due to the size of the enclosed gymnasium.  There were only two classrooms.  One for grades 1 through 4, and the second for grades 5 through 8.

It was there, where I spent the next 7 years of my childhood.  Though I didn't like school, I learned to tolerate it.  

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I soon discovered I needed to study a different way than the other kids.  Reading assignments were a nightmare for me.  I could read as well as the other kids, but I couldn't remember or retain, anything I read.

Because my thought processes were in terms of pictures, the words just didn't stick!

Fully frustrated, I soon quit reading altogether, and learned what I could by attentively listening and paying attention to whatever was happening in the classroom.

Mathematics was also very difficult because numbers didn't stick in my memory, either.  Pictures, colors, shapes, emotions and concepts were all that my memory would hold.  I soon found out that I couldn't remember mathematical details, so I worked hard at understanding the math concepts, and then I could work out the steps and details later.  I also found, when the teacher wrote math problems on the board, I could take a mental "snapshot" of the problem and then work later on understanding it.

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Thus, went my first 8 years of government school. Constant frustration of my inability to concentrate, and my awareness of being an underachiever, but being unable to overcome it. Because I had a hard time discussing anything with other people, I never told the teachers or anyone else about my problems

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Next - My eye injury at the LaBolt dam

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My first post
My second post
My Life Begins - I Almost Killed My Mother!! #1
My Life - Neighbor & Tomato Plants #2
My Life - A Boy and a BB Gun #3
My Life - A Boy and a BB Gun (continued) #4
My Life - The Devastation of First Grade #5
My Life - The Devastation of First Grade (continued) #6
My Life - The Devastation of First Grade Continued #7
My Life - "Buckshot"! #8
My Life - Unconscious at age 6 in a storm drain # 9