Spelling is not my forte

When I was growing up I had real trouble with spelling.  I could not do it.  I had real trouble with getting my b’s and d’s round the right way.  And I guess I am just in too much of a hurry to get what I want to say down to be too worried about how it’s spelt.

But there is one incident from my childhood that sticks with me.  Part of my craziness is that I still feel guilt about stuff that happened a long time ago, half the time when I am not even to blame or did nothing wrong.  Maybe guilt is not the right word, but I am still affected by these happenings.

When I was about 7 or 8, I was in Mr Allen’s class.  He was very strict but fair and he went to school with my Dad.  I really liked him as a teacher.  But I just could not learn to spell.  Each week, just I imagine, like every other class in the world, we had to learn 10 spelling words.  One week I was having trouble with a particular word, I can’t even remember what the word was.  My Mum must have been so very frustrated with me, my sister could spell perfectly and I really could not.

 

Anyway the afternoon of the test came around, and I was very nervous, I was sure that I had learnt this word finally.  But in the spelling test, it was not called out.  I was upset as I had worked so hard.  So I wrote it on the page below the test just to prove to myself that I could spell it.  But when I handed my book into my teacher, he accused me of putting it there before the test so that if it was called out that I could cheat.  I was really upset, cause not only was a teacher that I really liked, accusing me of cheating, but was not willing to hear what I had to say.  And I had worked so hard.

I remember that afternoon when my Mum came to pick me up, her asking me what was wrong and I didn’t say anything, but making myself scarce when Mr Allen came to chat with the Mums.  I have no idea if he told her or not, but I don’t remember any punishment at school or at home.  But I felt bad that I had been accused of something that I did not do.

These days, I use spell check quite a lot, and am a lot better at spelling.  I still have trouble getting what I want to say down the page fast enough, just like in real life when I can’t say what I want to say fast enough either.  The moral of this story is this – small kids will take what you say to heart and remember it 20 odd years on.  So be careful what you say and make sure that you hear them out.  Oh and that, really, after 20 odd years I should really be over this.