At the end of my fifth grade year, my teacher made an announcement. She was going to be teaching sixth grade and she would get to keep her class. That news was mixed for me — for Mrs. Bawabe was the creator of the ‘leftover table.’

Each week, she would allow four students to pick three other students for their four peson lunch tables. The problem, there were twenty students in the class (five tables) — so every week there were four students who sat together at the leftover table. It was usually me, Barbara, Nicole, and Tiffany. Barbara was the only white girl at the table — so you figure that out.

Anwyay, I digressed. Mrs. Bawabe decided to keep her class together except for three students. Needless to say I was one of them and I went off to Mr. Cezarek’s sixth grade class.

Now, for reasons never figured out, this teacher had it out for me. I think every other day or so, he would make a joke with the class at my expense. I was probably lucky, because I learned later, the student last year had to spend time standing in garbage cans for Richard Cezarek’s amusement.

The final straw came when we were in the hallway lined up to go somewhere. You remember elementary school — to preserve order, you went everywhere in a line, art, gym, assembly . . . Anyway, on this day, I think he was poised to scare me — how, by trying to plant a rubber spider on me. Fortunately, I’m not afraid of bugs, so I thought it was just stupid.

That was the last of that. Complaining by me, and intervention by my mother, and the rest of the year went by uneventfully (sensing a theme here?). So when people wax on about unappreciated public school teachers, I never join in.

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