The One and Only Time I Got in Trouble at School
By Sariah S. Wilson
As I mentioned in a previous post, I was the first graduating class from my high school. When the school district saw it would be necessary to create a third high school in my quickly growing area, they didn’t want to move upperclassmen from their schools.
This meant that we were always the oldest class, and it also meant that throughout high school we often had the same teachers all four years (and a special thank you to Ms. Meyers for making certain that by the time I graduated I had no understanding at all of Algebra II, Geometry/Trig, Pre-Calculus and Calculus). My Honors/AP English teacher, Mrs. Wilson, was my English teacher for all four years. I would say that our class had a special relationship with her because of our unique situation.
You also need to know that despite the fact that I was an often moody and sullen teenager, I was a great kid. While the majority of my Laurel class got drunk/pregnant at parties, I was quite the upstanding citizen. I was hyper involved organization wise (cheerleading and student government). In some ways I was like a character out of “Pleasantville.” I was not the kid who got in trouble.
So one day in my junior year Mrs. Wilson had to attend a conference at a local university, which would take her out of the classroom. She gave us all stern warnings to behave ourselves for the substitute. She also told us that she expected more from my class, because apparently being smart automatically means you’re good. We were given instructions to read quietly from the novel we were reading at the time.
You should know that I had every intention of following those directions.
My best friend in high school, a girl named Angela, sat in front of me in class (not because our teacher let us sit where we wanted, but because her last name started with R and mine started with an S). We usually managed to keep our talking/note-passing at a minimum.
The closest thing we had to a troublemaker in our studious class was a guy named Victor. I saw Victor whispering to two of his buddies, Craig and Nat, as they passed a sheet of paper around. I should have known something was up when Victor passed it to Angela. Within minutes I could see Angela’s shoulders shaking from suppressed laughter. She finally passed it back to me.
It was the Poopy List, which now you can easily Google and find (this was pre-internet).
I admit that it wasn’t the most sophisticated thing, and obviously I’m easily amused. I don’t know if it was the completely silent classroom or that I was a teenager or that I knew I wasn’t supposed to laugh or find it funny, but I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard and so silently at the same time.
I had tears streaming down my face, my body shook just like Angela in front of me from the laughter I couldn’t let out. My throat actually hurt from holding the laughs in. We both kept emitting little strangled gasps. Our reaction made Victor, Craig and Nat’s silent laughter even worse.
Finally the sub got wise to the fact that something was going on. She confiscated the Poopy List from me and wrote down our five names for having misbehaved.
Mrs. Wilson was not pleased. She issued us detention in her class for our actions. I remember how shocked I was - detention? Me? But it ended up being a detention where she sat down and chatted with us the entire hour. I remember how much fun that detention was, how much we laughed and talked. (We even dubbed ourselves “The Breakfast Club” because we had a basket case, a princess, a jock, a criminal and a brain.) As punishments go, it was a fairly nice one.
Did you ever get in trouble at school?
As I mentioned in a previous post, I was the first graduating class from my high school. When the school district saw it would be necessary to create a third high school in my quickly growing area, they didn’t want to move upperclassmen from their schools.
This meant that we were always the oldest class, and it also meant that throughout high school we often had the same teachers all four years (and a special thank you to Ms. Meyers for making certain that by the time I graduated I had no understanding at all of Algebra II, Geometry/Trig, Pre-Calculus and Calculus). My Honors/AP English teacher, Mrs. Wilson, was my English teacher for all four years. I would say that our class had a special relationship with her because of our unique situation.
You also need to know that despite the fact that I was an often moody and sullen teenager, I was a great kid. While the majority of my Laurel class got drunk/pregnant at parties, I was quite the upstanding citizen. I was hyper involved organization wise (cheerleading and student government). In some ways I was like a character out of “Pleasantville.” I was not the kid who got in trouble.
So one day in my junior year Mrs. Wilson had to attend a conference at a local university, which would take her out of the classroom. She gave us all stern warnings to behave ourselves for the substitute. She also told us that she expected more from my class, because apparently being smart automatically means you’re good. We were given instructions to read quietly from the novel we were reading at the time.
You should know that I had every intention of following those directions.
My best friend in high school, a girl named Angela, sat in front of me in class (not because our teacher let us sit where we wanted, but because her last name started with R and mine started with an S). We usually managed to keep our talking/note-passing at a minimum.
The closest thing we had to a troublemaker in our studious class was a guy named Victor. I saw Victor whispering to two of his buddies, Craig and Nat, as they passed a sheet of paper around. I should have known something was up when Victor passed it to Angela. Within minutes I could see Angela’s shoulders shaking from suppressed laughter. She finally passed it back to me.
It was the Poopy List, which now you can easily Google and find (this was pre-internet).
I admit that it wasn’t the most sophisticated thing, and obviously I’m easily amused. I don’t know if it was the completely silent classroom or that I was a teenager or that I knew I wasn’t supposed to laugh or find it funny, but I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard and so silently at the same time.
I had tears streaming down my face, my body shook just like Angela in front of me from the laughter I couldn’t let out. My throat actually hurt from holding the laughs in. We both kept emitting little strangled gasps. Our reaction made Victor, Craig and Nat’s silent laughter even worse.
Finally the sub got wise to the fact that something was going on. She confiscated the Poopy List from me and wrote down our five names for having misbehaved.
Mrs. Wilson was not pleased. She issued us detention in her class for our actions. I remember how shocked I was - detention? Me? But it ended up being a detention where she sat down and chatted with us the entire hour. I remember how much fun that detention was, how much we laughed and talked. (We even dubbed ourselves “The Breakfast Club” because we had a basket case, a princess, a jock, a criminal and a brain.) As punishments go, it was a fairly nice one.
Did you ever get in trouble at school?
Sariah Wilson — 5/19/2007 11:04:00 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Let's see, there was the time the playground flooded and we were supposed to stay on the high ground close to the building, but I waded out into chest deep water to retrieve a ball. The teacher made me take off my clothes and leave them on the classroom radiator and wear her coat until they dried. Both the teacher and the principal lectured me and my dad spanked me. Then there was the time I carved a picture on my desk and had to stay in recesses to sand and refinish the desk. Once a friend and I made quill pens, then sqealed, squeaked, and scratched our way through the weekly spelling test. We were sent to the principal's office, our parents called in for a conference, and we were transferred to another class (Our objective in the first place.) In junior high the bus delivered farm kids to the school an hour before school, but we were locked out until five to. One morning when it was especially cold, I picked the lock to the janitor's door and we all sneaked in. I didn't actually get punished for that. No one told on me. Our whole girls' basketball team discovered we could drain the bottles of pop in the school's chest style pop machine by saving our milk straws from lunch and keeping a "church key" handy. And then there was the time our teacher was late for class, so our whole class sneaked out a second story window onto the roof of the one story lunch room and hid behind some chimneys. One skinny kid stayed behind to close and lock the windows, then he climbed up the air duct. The teacher and principal hunted all over for us, then when the bell to change classes rang we all filed out of the classroom like nothing happened. No one said a word to any of us. Some of my kids read this blog, so I'd better not admit to anything more.
Once in sixth grade, I went to a class before school started so I could make up a quiz and got detention for chewing gum. I tried to argue my way out of it by saying it was before school even started, but Mrs. Anderson wouldn't budge. That was my first ever detention. And it was the kind where you clean the chalkboard and sit doing nothing for an hour. She was mean.
Elizabeth
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