the rebel

One of my younger cousins is interviewing me for a school report about my childhood. This brought up a lot of memories of school. Here are two stories:

In 2nd grade, another kid's parents came to teach us about teeth
because they were both dentists. They were telling us how teeth grow, how to brush them correctly, and why we need to brush them. They told us that there are tons of tiny bugs crawling around on our teeth and that we need to brush the bugs off to keep them clean. Bugs? Really? I raised my hand and asked, "do you really mean bugs? Aren't you just trying to make it simple for us?" They ignored my question and repeated that bugs were crawling around our mouth. That night at home I looked it up in the encyclopedia, and the things that are in our mouth are bacteria. They are not bugs. I was right. Don't always believe what grown-ups tell you.

In 3rd grade we were learning about poetry and we were told to write a poem that would be added to a book for the class. I watched TV and played outside until it was time to go to bed when I realized I needed to write a poem for the next day. I looked around the room and remembered that I had eaten a pomegranate for dessert. Perfect. I like pomegranates so I will write a poem about them. I turned it in the next day and it was something like: "Red pomegranate you are so sweet, I like to eat you in front of the fire." I thought it was the worst thing that anyone had ever written, and I was worried that my teacher would make me do it again. But the next day when I got to class she told me she loved it! And when it was added to the book of poems, the other parents of kids in the class told me that my poem touched them and they had never read anything better. This taught me that some people have weird taste, and you should never be afraid to try with creative things because chances are, someone will like it even if you don't.