I don’t know about you, but I was always excited to start the first day of school. I loved my new shoes and new bag and new uniform (yep, I always loved uniforms because I did not have to think about what I had to wear. I personally hate shopping and would think it great if I could wear a mommy-uniform every day. Well, actually I do. Because my married daughter says, “Ma! You are still wearing that outfit from a hundred years ago? You need to get yourself new stuff!” and then good ol’ UPS delivers boxes and boxes of new uniforms that my daughter chooses for me…), and new haircut, and that delicious new feeling that this year will be a great year.

So I will stop and tell you right now that no matter how optimistic I was, despite my new shoes, new haircut, new uniform and new school supplies (don’t you just love that heavenly smell of fresh paper and sharpened #2 pencils? Not those junky made-in-China pencils that you could sharpen forever but before that point is pointy pointy sharp, it broke off in little crumbles. Nope, I am talking about those pencils that curled when you sharpened them), I did not have not one single school year that I could look back and say, “Oh, that was a great, wonderful, fun, fuzzy-warm-sweet school year!” I definitely learned in school, I grew in school, but I was not happy in school. Little difference, but a huge one to me.

But every year, after the summer ended and I cried my heart out to leave camp, to leave my bungalow colony with all my summer friends; when I knew I was going to miss the grass and trees and winding country roads and smell of wet leaves; missing baseball and paddleball and dirty bunkhouses and major play and late night shmoozes; then I optimistically prepared for school thinking that THIS year it would work out.

Unfortunately, it did not. Ever. Not even in seminary.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I loved some teachers, and I loved being in the school play and hanging out with friends, and studying together, and walking to pizza during lunch. I loved our shabbatons and extra curricular events and organizing some of those events. I loved learning very, very much. I felt dumb compared to all my friends, and I earned a 67 on my Geometry regent, passing by the skin of my teeth, but I loved it all anyway. Most of the time, I guess.

But loving all the bits and pieces of school doesn’t mean school worked out for me. And it definitely doesn’t mean that the people in school were very happy with me. A lot of them (people like teachers and principals) may have kinda wished that I would work things out too. And maybe if I could not work things out the way they wanted me to, would have maybe wished that I could have disappeared. That may have worked out for them, at least. But nope. I wished, they wished, and our wishes did not come true.

So here is a column about relationships that were just not working too well even while everyone was wishing they would. And if you are that kind of student too, the one who wishes things could work out differently, and you start each school year davening for things to work out okay, and things just don’t work out okay, then this column is for you.

And maybe, maybe, you are like my daughter, who every year is a great year in school. The kind of school year where teachers praise you to your parents to the skies, school years that seem to fly by in good times and good marks and good friends. That you come in with all your newly sharpened pencils and the smell of fresh leather on your feet, and you bound into school and are excited to see your friends and teachers. And they are delighted as well. And then maybe you won’t be able to relate to this column. But maybe your sister or friend or cousin or neighbor seems to be the kind of student who relates to this column. And then maybe you can give this article to her. Or talk to her about it, or save this information so that one day you may be a teacher or mother who may need to remember this information. So that it will work out.

Becaues you want to hear something nice? You want to hear what did finally work out? You want to hear when my school years finally went exactly as planned? And maybe I did not walk in with new shoes and a crisp new uniform, but I walked in happy and walked out happy, and looked back at those years as working out great?

When I became a teacher.

Because you know the saying how the worst kids become the best teachers? It’s true!

So now that you have my happy endings, let me tell you the sad beginning.

I was a troublemaker in school.

I did not mean to be a troublemaker. Like I said, I came into the school year promising myself it would be different. I would be different. But then things did not work out as planned.

I would try, really I would.

When that first boring teacher began to drone on about some stuff that were really boring (Or sometimes about stuff that was really interesting but this teacher had a gift for making the most fascinating information sound boring. Usually she wsa boring because this teacher was already teaching in high school before my grandmother was born, or she was hired because she was the menahel’s first cousin’s sister’s great-aunt, or because she was sooooo chushiv that the school was thrilled to have her on the stationery head, or because she supported her husband in kollel and her ten children and the school couldn’t fire her...you get my drift….she was boring!), I told myself in a very strict voice, “Mindy, please behave,” and I answered, “Sure. But what should I do instead of misbehaving?” and that’s when I began all my tools and techniques to keep myself out of trouble.

I took notes. Religously. Even if I was the worst behaved kid in the universe, I always took notes. You know why? Because I hate wasting time. I always figured that even if the teacher was boring, I may as well learn something. And I definitely did not want to spend extra time waiting on line at the copy store paying good money to photocopy my friend’s notes before a test. And not know what’s flying on the test because I had not taken notes. So I took notes. But that did not stop the boredom…

But taking notes did not help.

I doodled. I did not help. I counted the tiles on the ceiling and the cracks on the walls. I started figdeting and turning in my seat. I asked to use the bathroom, I started whispering to my friend, I started passing notes, I started doing homework from a different class. I started making jokes in a loud whisper, I started kicking the back of my friend’s chair to get her attention.

I raised my hands wildly so the teacher could call on me so I could ask questions to get the teacher to talk about something more interesting.

Get the picture?

If it was as new year and a new teacher who did not know I was a troublemaker, she would not catch on for a while. She would try to stop my behavior nicely. “Mindy, stop talking.” Or, “Mindy put away your doodling,” or, “Yes, you can go to the bathroom but come right back.” Stuff like that.

But then she would get annoyed. “Put away your math homework during Halacha,” or “We are not talking about terrible school lunches during Math,” or, “Stop kicking the chair in front of you,” or, “Give me that note you dropped on the floor.”

And I would get bolder and engage in more trouble, and she would try to stop me, and I would become even rude and disrespectful with my speech as I would answer her back, and she would threaten to send me to the principal, and I would respond yet again, making comments and jokes so the class would laugh.

But it wasn’t funny. And I didn’t know how to stop myself. I didn’t understand how other girls could sit in the same boring class and behave. I was jealous of them.

Maybe I had more energy than other girls. Maybe I had a stronger personality. Maybe I needed more action and fun. Maybe I was less tolerant of being bored. Maybe I was smarter and I needed much more stimulation to keep me quiet. Maybe it was a combination of all those.

It made school very hard for me and very hard for my teachers. It even made things hard for my classmates, because sometimes, the teachers dreaded the classes I was in and the girls suffered from the teacher’s reaction to this dread.

I am a social worker now. I know a lot more things I knew then. And when I meet clients who have similar problems, they are usually great girls. Smart, with personality, and friends. But they need to behave in class because it ruins school for them. And for their classmates. And for their teachers who are humans (I promise they are! Didn’t I tell you I was once a teacher too?)

And this is what I encourage them—and their parents to do. Figure out what is making you restless in school. Is it boredom or is something more bothering you that makes you unable to concentrate in school? Is it something your parent can be told about? Can you confide in your teacher or principal? Is there a way everyone can work together to help you manage your boredom or whatever else it is that is making you antsy in class?

Sometimes, when a teacher knows you care, they are more sympathetic. You can get bathroom breaks, or permission to doodle. You can be allowed to leave class to help in the office, or to color in those adult coloring books that all the rage now. You may be excused from taking notes if it helps you behave, or you may sit in the front, or side, or back where you can control your behavior better.

There are ways to communicate with teachers, with parents in ways that you can be helped to manage those eight hour days at school so that come June you may be left with scruffy shoes, broken pencils, and messy bags, but your love of school intact.

Try it. I wish I had.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN TWIRL, BINAH'S TEEN MAGAZINE, IN THE" RELATIONSHIPS MATTER" COLUMN

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