No Erasers Allowed

I met Inez Barker when I was a newly minted five-year-old. My brother started first grade, and I was afforded all the rights and privileges that come with being the room mother’s child-still-at-home. Mrs. Barker was something else. I was mystified, terrified, and awestruck by her. She was the teacher every mother wanted her child to have. It was a day of rejoicing when we learned that my brother would be in her classroom. When I started school, Mrs. Barker was also my first grade teacher. I loved her so much. When I wasn’t scared to death of her.

First graders got evaluated on something called “readiness” for school. The problem was not really so much whether or not I was ready for Mrs. Barker and beginning my education. It was more a matter of whether the first grade was ready for me. Mrs. Barker, you see, had her own ideas about learning. She preferred a “blank slate,” and her ideal pupil was one who had not attended kindergarten. Mrs. Barker did not want her students to waste time “unlearning” bad habits. So, my mother, in anticipation of and praying for first grade with Mrs. Barker, did not send me to kindergarten. Unfortunately for Mrs. Barker, she was not getting the tabula rasa she was expecting in me.

I started first grade knowing a lot of things. I loved books, so I took to reading naturally. The alphabet, sight words, colors, numbers, shapes, letter sounds – all those things were fun to learn. So, I went ahead and took care of that long before I started first grade. My brother helped me and would share all the new stuff when he got home each afternoon. Life was good. I couldn’t wait to go to school and be a real first grader.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Barker found me a little too “ready” for school. I had learned things my own way, and my ways were not always her ways. We might or might not have clashed on occasion. Mrs. Barker had one quality that I found truly disturbing. She hated erasers. All of her students were required to use those big, fat first grade pencils. And they could not have an eraser. If your pencil came with an eraser, you had two choices – you could do what I did and get your daddy to saw it off, or Mrs. Barker would whack it with the hammer that she kept in her desk expressly for that purpose. She got rid of the entire eraser and half of the pencil that way. She would not allow you to erase a mistake. Her method was this – if you mess up when you are writing, draw an “X” over your mistake and do it again. No erasing allowed under any circumstances. Not that it mattered – there were no erasers. I had a hard time forming some letters the way she demanded. Part of that was not my fault. A right-handed child taught by a left-handed mother can create some quirks. I still iron with the ironing board pointing in the “wrong” direction.

So first grade progressed and I did my best to be a good student. I was pretty successful and usually didn’t talk or cause any problems. But, one day, I just got so frustrated about all the “X” marks I kept making to “erase” my mistakes that I couldn’t take it any longer. I said, “I really NEED an eraser. PLEASE!” I said it too loud. Mrs. Barker was not happy with me and I got punished. Sort of. Her version of “time out” was putting you in the supply closet by yourself. I got sent there for my outburst, but it was hardly punishment to me. I had a grand time cutting up construction paper, gluing petals and leaves together to make the most beautiful flowers, adding glitter because it was so pretty. This is the best punishment ever! Who wouldn’t want to do this? This is so much better than adding or spelling. Wish I had found out how to get here sooner! When my time out was over, Mrs. Barker opened the door to set me free. She was most unhappy with me, but even she had to see the humor in it. I was the very last person ever sentenced to the supply closet. From then on, the offender had to sit at a single desk under the American flag – in easy sight of Mrs. Barker.

So, here I sit – once again in the Cancer Center – this time just getting my iron topped off, but still a time-consuming thing. There was a time when sitting still for so long would have been such a burden – and I mean fairly recently, too. I don’t “do” still very well. What I might have viewed as punishment in the recent past has turned into a time when I can reflect on God’s mercy, grace, goodness, and love. I have said before that I have never been more certain of God’s love for me. And today, it is kind of like being punished by spending time in that first grade supply closet. There is an abundance of good stuff here for me and I am thankful for time to reflect on how God uses some of the darkest times to bring us the most light.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 8:35-39


P.S. You know how at the end of the year, teachers will sometimes write notes on your report card? My brother got one from Mrs. Barker that said, “David has been a pleasure to teach this year.” I got one that said, “Susan seems to enjoy art and is very creative.” Hmmm. Wonder what that was about.