Struggles with English (back in the day)

When I thought about doing this blog I was initially uncertain as I have never been the best writer. It made me think back to when I was in year 4 in England, which is the equivalent of 3rd grade in America. I had the BEST teacher ever. His name was Mr. Rawbone. He was funny, always making me laugh, he challenged me a lot, kept me on my toes, and taught me so much that I still remember to this day. I had him as my main teacher and all of the classes we switched for (English, Mathematics, Science, and History) except from Mathematics.

I loved history, art, music, science, P.E with him, but I did not enjoy English. He was a good teacher, I just struggled a lot. It was that year that Mr. Rawbone was able to narrow down and find out why I was struggling with English. I had always been able to read through books and I was a professional speller, but I found the subject of English itself to be a challenge. The thing he found out, was that I struggled with my comprehension which ultimately affected my work.

I remember that I was given a piece of writing that was a very formal, traditional, and old, and my task was to rewrite it so that it was more modern and interesting. We were able to edit and change things throughout the story, but we had to keep to the story as much as we could. This sounds like a really fun, interesting task, I may even do something similar in my future classroom, but I remember it causing me a lot of trouble. Instead of looking at the story as a whole, I decided to look at each word and change it to sound more modern. Yes, I changed the story word for word, even the simplistic words such as chair to bench or couch. I could not even imagine Mr. Rawbone's thoughts as he started to read, understand, and grade it. It was very all over the place and had he read it all the way through, I am not even sure if it would make sense or not.

This was an indicator to him that I was struggling. He sent some homework and worksheets home with me that week to see where I was with my comprehension. These required me to read various passages and then answer questions about what I just read. When I first started, I skimmed through the passage and was unable to answer the questions. I then looked at the questions and searched until I found the answers to the questions. This is obviously not the right way to do it. I read the passages through, was able to answer the questions, but had no idea what had happened throughout the passage. When I went back the next week, I proudly turned in my completed worksheets ahead of the deadline he had given me. We were both very pleased. During a work time later that day, he pulled me aside, told me I had done a great job on my worksheets, and asked me to tell him what happened in the passages. I was stumped. I had no idea. I told him what I knew but was unable to tell him all that I should have been able to. He then gave me another passage and asked me to work on it with him. He was then able to see what I was doing and understood my struggle with comprehension.

Once Mr. Rawbone, my parents, and I understood, I was able to work on it, and make noticeable improvements. I picked up a simple book from my bookshelf and decided to read it. I read it, but this time instead of rushing through it like I usually had done, I spent my time reading closely. I often read sentences several times and I highlighted any words I did not know or sentences I did not understand to ask my parents about. This was the start of my love for reading and writing!

I read book after book. I also started to write a lot more creative stories. In my spare time, I would write a story about rescuing a giraffe caught in some trash that was in a tree, how I went to the moon, and many more. I even wrote in a bibliography, that we did in class, that when I grew up I wanted to be an author and publish books.

Mr. Rawbone did not just ignore my bad modernizing story, but took it into his own hands to make sure he knew what I was doing wrong and did not stop until he knew the answer. He cared about every single one of his students individually and would do anything he could do to help us succeed. He has been a large contribution to my decision to become a teacher. I hope that one day I can help any students who might be struggling to find out the issue and bring out new love for the subject just like he did for me. I had a new love for English after having him as a teacher, so much that now in my future today, English is one of my minors in college.