The Bard of the Seventh Grade

I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t her. After sparring with six teachers at five grade schools in three states, I was sure they were all out to get me. But then, on the first day of seventh grade—at Glenbrook Junior High School (Go Panthers!) in Concord, California—one of my new teachers, shrugged off my prejudice and changed the course of my life with five words.

As I crammed myself into a desk built for students with much shorter legs than mine, she strode into the room and fixed her eyes on us with a steady, unsmiling gaze. Her eyes were the same dark color as her short, sleek hair and tailored suit.

“My name is Miss Maggart,” she announced briskly. She plucked a fresh piece of white chalk from the metal tray of the black board and wrote the letters of her name out in elegant, perfect cursive.

A pudgy, freckled boy close to me whispered, “maggot.” Snickers and giggles erupted.

Miss Maggart set the piece of chalk back into the aluminum tray with a click. She turned slowly and spoke with pointed intensity. “And I’m very strict! You will not get an A from me unless you pay attention and work very hard.”

I gulped. She was my teacher for three classes: homeroom, social studies, and history.

Many days later, I became aware that Miss Maggart’s classroom was filled with color: yellow sunshine streamed in through large windows, cheerful pictures of Mexican festivals were pinned to a cork bulletin board, and a bright blue and green map of the world hung on a peach-colored wall. But on that day my fear and anxiety shaded everything in grays.

My father had just informed me that if my grades didn’t improve, I would be going to summer school. The thought of sitting in a classroom while my sisters and brothers were at the city swimming pool or playing outside was the worst fate I could imagine. I had decided to apply myself to the task of earning good grades. And now this. This strict teacher.

The first big assignment Miss Maggart gave us was to turn in a project about some aspect of life in an ancient culture. We all groaned, but she surprised us—twice. First, she said we could choose our own subject. And then she told us we could present it in any form. I could barely believe my luck. I had an assignment with artistic freedom!

For two weeks I labored over my project during evenings and weekends. No one had to tell me to do my social studies homework. For the first time in my school career, I was eager to do a homework assignment. This was fun. I wallowed happily in unlimited creativity until I’d wrestled an epic poem out of information extracted from the E volume of Encyclopedia Britannica.

On the day the assignment was due, I handed Miss Maggart a bright blue folder decorated with a pyramid, a black cat, and a field of golden grain, all of which I had carefully drawn. The edges were striped with gold crayon. Inside were twenty-four pages of rhyming verse, neatly printed in four-stanza sections, describing the splendor of ancient Egyptian civilization.

After three days of anxious waiting, I walked up to the front of the classroom to retrieve my folder from Miss Maggart’s hand. I glanced up at her face. It told me nothing. I walked back to my desk and sat down. I wiped my sweaty palms on my skirt and then opened the folder.

On the title page, a large red “A+” hovered over my name and underneath it, written in elegant cursive script, were these words: “Bard of the Seventh Grade!” I blinked, closed the folder, opened it again. The red “A+” was still there.

For a moment, I could barely breathe. Daddy would be proud of me. I had finally done something right. And the proof was in my hands.