My Creativity In Middle School

I had always hated reading.

For a long time it was an activity I could evade with ease. In fact, my creativity was not even challenged until I was well into elementary school. In kindergarten and first “I don’t want to”, was deemed a valid excuse. Naturally second and third graders have absolutely no bladder control, and thus responding to “Alex, how about you read?” with “I gotta pee” had a 100% success rate. By fourth grade I had learned that I could win a free trip to the nurses office by shoving a pencil into my nose and making it bleed, a skill that carried me straight into middle school. Sixth grade was a different world.

Now you’re probably wondering “Did you really hate reading that much?” And the simple answer is yes… but why? When I first started school, I was surprised to learn that I was apparently the funniest kid in the room. It seemed like every time I opened my mouth the other boys smiled and laughed. It was incredible, I kept
For almost 6 years I quietly followed along without ever reading aloud or alone. I had learned to vary my methods of getting out of classes instead of learning to enjoy them. I avoiding English with constant nose bleeds and bathroom breaks, even adding the exotic “complications finding my book” excuse to the list; however, my teacher’s response had changed. Instead of pleading for me to participate, he penalized me with poor grades and gave me sharp warnings about my “reluctance to learn”. I did not hesitate to ignore both of these approaches (an easy task for a trained veteran like myself) until it became impossible. In November of my sixth grade year I broke my forearm, an injury that forced me to miss two and a half months of gym. So while all of my friends spent two hours wrestling and playing basketball on Monday and Friday mornings, I was trapped behind a small desk face to face with my mortal enemy: Mr.