My School Years

I was born in Newton, and raised in West Newton, Ma. I went to the Franklin Elementary School. It was a short walk from Rangley Road to the school. I don't remember much about the school. I remember watching educational TV on WGBH on a tiny tv in the classroom.  It was a short walk to the school and I would walk with my older sister Judy. My reading skills  were not good. At summer camp, I  had a reading tutor who would push my skills to above the next grade level and back at school, my grade level would slowly drop below the other students by the end of the school year. Back at camp I learnt to read and back at school, I forgot how to read. 

People were nice in West Newton. Small Town and we had a synagogue  that had a wonderful Sunday School. Newton had a large Jewish population. I was extremely shy, but, I always felt safe.

The summer after  4th Grade we moved to Western MA to Springfield , MA. A big city with buses and a very busy downtown. My new elementary school was very old. We had a playground that was all gravel.

My 5th grade teacher was very nice but she was sick a lot and we had many different substitute teachers.

There were tough guys in my class. Mean little kids. Name calling kids. I learnt what it meant to be different. I learned that I killed Jesus, and learnt  about prejudice  people. There was a lot of name calling, and scary stuff going on. I went to Sunday School at Temple. People there were nice. Teachers were interesting. I started to make friends. We were not near the school and I had a long walk every day. I moved to Forest Park Junior High School in 7th Grade. It was a very large and very old school. I never felt safe there. But I did make a friend and enjoyed girl scout activities.  I attended 7th and 8th grade in Springfield.  I was never happy there. I started to pull out all my eyelashes. Time after time, I  walked to school with red swollen eyes. 

We moved to Wellesley Hills and I started 9th grade in a very nice new school. I was placed in the band home room.  The band would practice during home room time. I would be the only kid left in the room.  I never knew why someone would place a new kid in the home room  where  I had not chance to meet anyone and make friends. The school had a wonderful new gym, lunch room and even golf classes for gym. I hated it. I hated it all. Again, I had no friends. I did things by myself. 

The next year I moved to Wellesley Senior High School. My sister was in 11th grade and I was in 9th grade.  I did not fit in. I did not wear the in rich kid clothes. I was not cool. We had to take a school bus every morning and night. I hated walking down the halls, I knew I did not fit in. I could tell that I was different.  There was four other  jewish kids in my class. The rest of the school were old money Yankees. Cold, unfriendly people.