©Linda Goodman 1/27/2018
After I passed the fifth grade at
James Hurst Elementary School in the Cradock section of Portsmouth, Virginia, I
enjoyed a lovely summer vacation. I savored every minute of it, as I knew that,
come fall, I would be attending sixth grade at Cradock Jr. High School. Brother
Allen warned me that the sixth grade would be hard. He reminded me that Brother
Lee, my oldest brother, had failed the sixth grade and had to repeat it. I
cried when I heard that. I would have died if I had failed a whole grade. I
assumed Brother Lee had been as upset as I would have been in that situation (I
later discovered that it did not bother him at all.).
Sixth grade was strange compared to
fifth grade. In elementary school, students had one teacher all day long in one
classroom. In the sixth grade, I had four teachers who rotated from class to
class. My sixth grade English teacher, Mrs. Mabry, took a shine to me. She
admired my taste in books (we both loved Charles Dickens).She also discovered
that I was writing a book, and she asked me about it every day. She knew how to
nurture her students without being sappy. “Be proud of what you have achieved,”
she told me at the end of the school year. “And here is my advice to you: think
positive. Whatever task you are given, no matter how hard it seems, just repeat
to yourself I think I can. I think I can, and you will always be at the
front of the pack.
Sixth grade was not so bad after
all.
In the seventh grade, my English
teacher was Mrs. Mancuso, and she, too, enjoyed my writing. “You write so well,
and you always use the correct grammar,” she told me, “And I have never seen
you misspell a word. In fact, I think that you should enter the school Spelling
Bee.”
I had never heard of a Spelling Bee.
Mrs. Mancuso explained that it was a contest where students competed to see who
was the best speller. “I know you can win it,” she assured me. “You just need
to have faith in yourself. Positive thinking can accomplish anything.”
So two teachers that I loved thought
I could win the Spelling Bee! That was good enough for me. I picked up the
official Spelling Bee practice booklet and spent hours studying every word,
except the small ones. I already knew them.
Some of the words
were so hard that I had to memorize their spellings. But I had two teachers who
had told me to say, I think I can. I think I can. I told myself that,
too. And then I started telling my classmates, but by then my mantra had
changed from I think I can to I know I will. I convinced myself
that I could spell better than anyone else in my school, and I thought the more
I staked that claim, the more positive I would be and the greater chance I
would have to win that Spelling Bee.
Finally the big day
came. I, along with nine others, sat on the stage of the school auditorium in
front of every class in the school as we waited for the contest to begin. Each
of us wore a number pinned to our chest. I was number two. Three judges, one
lady and two men, sat at a table to the right of the stage.
Once all the students were settled
in their seats and quiet, the woman judge stood up. “Number 1,” she announced,
and my friend Maureen stood up. The woman sternly looked at her and said, “Your
word is nicotine.”
Maureen nervously spelled out the
word: n-i-c-o-t-i-n-e.
“Correct,” the woman announced. “You
may take your seat back on the stage.”
How easy could this get?
“ Number 2,” the lady said as she
turned her attention to me. I stood up and she announced, “Your word is across.”
What? That was a baby word! Why was
I being given a baby word?
The woman cleared her throat and
once again said, “Your word is across.”
I was grinning from ear to ear. I
would win this contest in no time at all. I stood up tall and spelled
a-c-c-r-o-s-s.”
“That is incorrect!” the woman
announced. “Please take a seat down in the auditorium.”
I was shocked! Had I really spelled
it wrong? A baby word? I could not believe it.
I felt like I was on a walk of shame.
As I went down the steps to join the student body, I heard my classmates mates
giggling all around me, saying “She bragged to everyone that she was going to
win, and then she misspelled her very first word!” Cecil Boudreau, my classroom
nemesis, started laughing so loudly he had to be escorted out of the auditorium.
I hung my head low.
My classmates kidded me for a few
weeks, but they got over it. I carried the hurt and humiliation, however, for
months.
It was Mrs. Mabry who set me
straight. “Being positive is good, but you should understand that
over-confidence can make you look like a braggart. The good news is, you can
always try again next year.”
I took that little nugget and filed
it in the deep recesses of my brain. It has served me well. To this very day,
though, I cannot spell a word out loud in front of others. In the end, my humiliation made me humble.
