Starting second grade was exciting for two reasons. First, I got to go to a brand new school. Second, I had a broken arm and I got to start school with my arm in a cast! And then, there was a third reason. My teacher's name was Miss Ishikowa, and I was almost taller than her.
When we first moved to our new home East of Mesa we were in an older school that had been around for a long time. I liked it. There were big, mature trees on the play ground that offered shady spots to escape the Arizona sun, and the teachers were nice. I remember Mrs. Bateman, my first grade teacher, letting us paint a Christmas mural on white butcher paper stapled to the wall. The kids said she melted down chalk with water and sugar to make our paint. They said it tasted good. I wonder if she really did? I doubt it.
Mesa was growing quickly on the eastern side, so by the next year a new school was built. Our house was half way between both schools, but our neighborhood was assigned to go to the new one. I remember going with Mom and Keith to walk through the new school and meet our teachers a few days before school began. I was so impressed, and very nervous! Whereas the old school had been built from red brick, this new school was made from big, cream colored blocks, and it looked very modern. Of course there were no big trees to offer shade, but the grass was already coming up, and we had a huge cement pad in the playground where we could play four-square and jacks and jump rope, and the boys played basket ball. It was really cool!
My teacher was a lovely young Japanese American girl, with beautiful black hair and slanting eyes, and I thought she was wonderful! She spoke softly and loved us kids, and we made the most amazing art projects that year. For Thanksgiving she showed us how to make big white collars to put over our clothes. We glued black ribbon on them and tied them in a bow under our chins. She helped us girls make matching white pilgrim girl hats to wear on our heads, and I thought I looked so cute I asked Mom if I could wear my costume when we went out to Williams Air Base to have Thanksgiving dinner with Grandma Johnson. (But that's another story for a different day.)
In the spring Miss Ishikowa taught us how to put a drop of black paint on a piece of white paper, then blow the paint with a straw, making a tree with long, willowy branches. It was so pretty! She let us put a long, long piece of white butcher paper on one wall of our room, and we painted a Japanese mural on it. There was a tall, snow capped mountain in the background, a stream winding through the front with a pretty bridge over it, and a Japanese pagoda on one side. I thought it was the loveliest picture I'd ever seen. For Mother's Day she taught us how to make cherry blossom out of pink tissue paper which we glued onto a card for our mothers. I found the one I made for mom just a week ago, saved in an old scrap book mother made.
I sure loved Miss Ishikowa. Up until that time I had dreamt of becoming a nurse when I grew up, but she inspired me with a new goal. I decided I wanted to be a second grade teacher. Funny, I almost made it. I've substituted in lots of second grade classrooms, but I taught 1st, 4th, 6th, and 7th.
The only negative thing I remember from my second grade experience was knowing that I was so much bigger than most of the other little girls in my class. I never was a skinny little girl, the word "plump" comes to mind when I look at my school pictures, and that was hard. I wanted to be tiny and petite like my cousins. But the day I realized I was taller than my teacher was the day I knew I would never be cute and small. Granted, Miss Ishikowa was a tiny litttle person, but to be taller than your second grade teacher is saying something, and it wasn't something I was happy to hear. Darn.
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