School for gifted students

Back in my days in elementary school (we're talkin' prehistoric, clear back to 1991), the school district had a program called TAG, which stood for "talented and gifted." If you wanted to know if your kid was considered "gifted" by the school's standards, you had him/her take a test with a bunch of other kids after school hours. So, one Saturday I went in a room with some fellow first graders to find out if they thought I was smart.      They did, and I was signed up for TAG, even though I scribbled "CAN'T DO IT TOO HARD!" on some of the math problems. Well, I still think I'm pretty smart, but you have to understand that back then I thought a "pelvis" was a disease you got from watching too many Elvis movies(true). I also thought there was a bomb in every TV and if you turned the remote to Channel 1 it would explode(true).      Anyway, TAG was a separate class, and in order to take it you had to skip your normal class for the day. The follwing day I would come back to my normal room and find handouts and graded papers vigorously crammed into my desk shelf by some other kid who was told to put them there.      Now that I think of it, I don't think I learned anything useful from this class at all. I did take notes, though!

Our teacher was Mrs. Gerritz, a woman who told us many interesting facts. One I distinctly remember: "You know how copy machines work? They strip the ink off the original by suction, and put it on the copy. That's why you should never try to copy your hand, because the machine will strip your skin off and put it on the paper!!!" Mrs. Gerritz sure had a lot to teach us gifted kids. My other distinct memories of her, though, are sitting out in the hall while she bent over and barked in my face about "behaving in class." Staring at her sharp nose was apparently her punishment, and I had to do it a lot. "LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M TRYING TO TALK TO YOU! I SAID LOOK AT ME!!!" *continued next page*