It was the first day of junior year and I had somehow gotten myself kicked out of English
class. About a week before school started, I had visited my guidance counselor to pick up my
schedule for the coming school year. When I sat down at her desk, I remember the panic that
came to my mind when I saw the intimidating name on that paper. Celecia Peters. According to
the rumors around school, Mrs. Peters was every slacker’s worst nightmare. She demanded top
quality work and her tests were supposedly spark-note proof, meaning that she purposely
designed questions that could not be answered by reading the summaries on every high school
students’ go-to website. I tried every excuse to get out of her class, but my guidance counselor
was not having any of it. My guess is that she had heard it all before. I was stuck with the
dreaded Mrs. Peters.
Exactly a week later I was headed to school for first period English. As you already
know, my first encounter with Mrs. Peters was not a lengthy one, but it did have a big impact on
my life. As my twenty fellow classmates and I sat in the classroom waited for Mrs. Peters to
arrive, we divulged about our summers and the “required” reading, which we did not take very
seriously. I never actually read, and the teachers knew it. Most of the time I would just wait
until the last minute to read spark notes, and make a barely passing grade on the test the next
day. I probably should have known better, but Mrs. Peters had her own way of doing things. As
she arrived to class, she proceeded to make true her reputation as the most terrifying 4’11’’
teacher to ever exist. She told us that her class would be harder than any class we have ever
experienced, and that she was here only to teach us and had no interest of being our friend. After
the shocking initial speech, she reached into her purse and took out the summer reading book.
We talked about it for a few minutes, and then she turned to me and asked me a question.
“Mason, what was the name of the main character in The Red Badge of Courage?” I honestly
had no idea; I couldn’t even think of a name to make up. Needless to say, the ruthless Mrs.
Peters kicked me out of class while simultaneously telling me that I would probably work at
McDonald the rest of my life.
As I was sitting in the hallway, I questioned to myself why I had not done the required
reading. During the summer, I had completely made up my mind that I was not even going to
start the book. I just hated reading so much that I would rather be kicked out of class and
possibly fail the test instead of simply taking a few hours out of my day to read. It was at this
point that I had a flashback, to a time when my opinion on reading was very different.
It was about a month before kindergarten. My grandpa, who was visiting from New
Jersey, decided that he wanted to begin teaching me how to read. I am not really sure why he did
it, considering that most kids don’t begin learning letters and sounds until they actually start
school, but I am definitely glad that he took the initiative. I remember basically everything about
this encounter with my grandpa. I remember that we were sitting at the dining room table, eating
grilled cheese, which was my favorite snack as a child. I remember the exact shirt and the
Phillies hat that he was wearing that day. Franklin, a popular children’ TV show, was playing in
the background. My grandpa had designed a bunch of flash cards with letters on them. Every
time he held up a letter, I would have to tell him the sound that it makes. He made me give him
the sounds of all 26 letters before I was allowed to leave. Each time I made a mistake, he would
start over with the letter A, giving me incentive to concentrate so that I could get back to watch
television. Though I didn’t really enjoy it at the time, reading quickly became one of my favorite
activities as a child. By the time I started kindergarten, was I able to reading books by myself.
Granted, they were simple books, but I still remember how impressed my teacher was when she
saw that I already knew how to read.
The next flashback took me to a time around third grade. My love for reading had only
grown since Kindergarten, and I had read basically every book in my house that was anywhere
close to my level. I remember that it was around Christmas time, so I decided to ask for a bunch
of books instead of the toys that a normal third grader would ask for. I specifically remember
my two older brothers giving me a very hard time about this. They teased me and told me that I
was a nerd, which I realized later is normal for older siblings. About two weeks before
Christmas, I was snooping around my parents’ room for one reason or another. I opened up my
mom’s dresser, the top right drawer to be exact, and found a stack of my favorite books: the Cam
Jansen mystery series. I remember being utterly confused. Surely my mom was not reading
these, and she definitely could not have gotten them for me because she knew that I had asked
for these same books from Santa. I was always told not to go in the dresser around Christmas
time, but I had no idea why. I couldn’t resist myself and ended up taking the books from my
mom’s dresser. I figured it would be a good idea to keep the discovery a secret, so I carried the
books around in my backpack for the next few days and only read them in school. I eventually
finished the books and placed them back in my mom’s dresser like nothing had happened. When
Christmas finally came around, my three siblings and I crowded around the presents like we
previously had every other year. My parents handed me my first present, which felt oddly
familiar. When I ripped open the paper, I was shocked to see the same four books that I had
taken from my parents’ room a few weeks earlier, with the same folded edges and everything. It
was then that I came to the sad realization that every child eventually does. Santa wasn’t real.
Christmas was enjoyable nonetheless, and the fact that I had already read the books was not a
problem. I usually enjoyed reading a book three or four times before I would get bored with it,
and then I would move on to the next.
Thinking back on these few specific instances while sitting in the vacant hallway,
I came to the realization that my opinion on reading had changed drastically over the last few
years. Reading went from being a major part of my life to the thing that I dreaded most about
school, and English class in particular. It was made obvious that the whole last minute spark
note approach would not work with Mrs. Peters, and in the end I am glad that she made it this
way. Though I learned to read at a very young age and have very distinct memories of the entire
process, I never really saw the importance until that first period class with Mrs. Peters. Despite
being the most difficult teacher I have ever had, she taught me the importance of reading and
even how to enjoy it once again, which is something that I will always keep with me.