Recess was over. Instead of quietly filing back to their assigned desks, a handful of students got into a scuffle in the closet at the back of the room where we hung our coats and left our wet boots. Sister Florance called out the names of the usual classroom trouble-starters and the noise level dropped. The second time she called out the names, everyone returned to their desks.

Our teacher, a nun I considered elderly because she had a very wrinkly face, stood at the front of the classroom studying all 50 of her students, row by row before saying, “I’ve decided that we are going to do an art project for the rest of the afternoon. You need a rest from all the end of the semester tests you’ve been taking this past week.”

I sighed gratefully. I knew I had done well on some of the tests but felt ashamed of how poorly I had done on others. The tests that I hated the most were the story math problems. For example, instructions on how to figure the measurements of a room just by being told the room size were impossible to understand.

Forgetting all that, I threw myself into following Sister’s directions. She demonstrated each step. This was my favorite way of receiving instructions. As usual, a few of the students in the class jumped up from their desks to wander around the room like untrained feral children. Sister repeatedly reminded them to sit back down. They continued getting up to sharpen their pencils and poke their friends. Some of the students were doing the art, but not according to the directions.

That year when parents visited their children’s classrooms and talked to their teachers, my mother was told that, “Kathy has what it takes to get good grades in all subjects…if only she would just learn to apply herself.”