Coop’s Youth Part 1 – Puberty Pressure Cooker
July 12th, 2014 at 16:04But stressful challenges were ahead for all of us. Our mom still figuring out her persona now as a single adult woman, “divorcee”, and part of the progressive community that existed around the university. Peter entering third grade still wrestling with his weight issues but emerging as a talented artist.
And me, matriculating into junior high. The start of school each fall had become the yearly low point for me, and now doubly so because of a big new school full of loads of kids that I would not know and may or may not be comfortable with. I had survived my last couple years of elementary school without too much psychic damage, though I got through it by being more of a trained seal than a fully engaged person. My emerging approach to my academic school work was exemplified by my zeal for working my way through the color-coded SRA reading program, reading their generic, homogenized, level-rated prose pieces and taking the comprehension test after each, before moving on the next piece and eventually up to the next color level. What I was reading was not particularly interesting to me, the whole point was to try to “level up” relative to my classmates, which had some self-esteem boost for me.
I have no recollection now of the first time I set foot in the institutional halls of Tappan Junior high for my first day of homeroom and six different classes each day, probably one of the youngest kids there given I was a year ahead of myself in school, having skipped kindergarten many years back. The building Coop’s Youth Part 1 – Puberty Pressure Cooker | Lefty Parent: