“Clouded Judgement”
I had made it all the way to eighth grade and now had become advanced enough to be in advanced writing and reading class, or what my middle school called AIM. I was no longer riding the border between making to the next grade or not and yet I still struggled with writing. Again the haunting feeling of the grammar of it all haunted me and made me question my creative choices. The standards pushed their way into my brain and caused me to get my first “D” on a paper. The teacher at the time marked up my paper with red ink that told me what a failure I was at the application of writing but “that I had good ideas”. I remember thinking that I would never be a teacher because I couldn’t manage the nitty-gritty of writing, despite my love for showing all the thoughts in my head. Rather than working with me to mesh my out of the box thinking with the technical junk, my teacher chose to mark up my paper with a big red “D” and leave me to believe I was once again on the road to failure. It made me question whether or not I could continue to pursue writing and literacy. I fell behind again and curled back up into my shell finishing the semester with a “C” in the class. I was again back to the “below level”. I hated the thought of writing and wanted nothing to do with it. I set my sites on maybe taking a basic office job where I would continuously be told what exactly they wanted me to write. This moment sticks with me in what I should not do as a writer hoping to ignite writing in others. While yes the tools of spelling and grammar are important, we have computers that aid in that. What computers can’t assist in is the original thinking of students, of fresh writers. Years later I can see the mindset the teacher was in, but I also know it almost sent me down the wrong path. It almost made me set down the pen and abolish writing from my life, which I think is what happens to most students in education. The push of writing standards clouds the knowledge and application of writers, like myself.
English Education 