The Rocket Launch

Fifth grade was a tough year for me.  I was diagnosed with asthma, and was unable to participate in PE.  And, as fickle as children are, that was enough to make me the butt of taunting and teasing by the rest of the class.

I grew up in a small, rural K-8 school with one grade per class.  I started Kindergarten with the same 30 students with whom I graduated from 8th grade.  There was only one group, and once they turned on you, it was excruciatingly isolating.

My fifth grade teacher was a model rocket nut.  He had rockets all over the classroom, and three times a year the whole school turned out for a rocket launching, where we all counted down to blast-off and watched them shoot into the air, and the 8th graders got to chase them as they came floating back to earth.  It was a highlight beyond any others at Edison Elementary.  The next launch was more than a month away, and the rockets that hung from the ceiling and lay stacked upon the shelves taunted us through our lessons.

One sunny afternoon, as the class was excused for PE, the other students taunted me mercilessly as I sat at my desk with my book, where I would stay while they played kickball outside.  Tears filled my eyes, but did not spill over – I didn’t want to give anyone the satisfaction.  My teacher watched them all walk past me and listened to the comments, not saying a word.  After they were all gone he and I sat silently for a few moments, while he weighed what to say.  Finally, he went with what he knew – he told me to pick my three favorite rockets.  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but scrambled up and rattled off my favorite three (we all had our favorites, and I could have named a Top 10 if given the chance).  He carefully gathered my favorites, collected the launching materials, and told me to follow him.  Out we went to the huge grass field next to the kickball field, where my classmates played.

He and I set up the launcher together.  He let me handle all the precious materials, connect the wires, set the rockets on the launching pad, hold the launcher.  Never before (at least as far as I knew) had a student handled these precious materials.  Together, the two of us counted down.  I pressed the launch button, and I alone chased the rockets as they fell from the sky, catching them before they touched the earth.  My classmates watched from the next field as I was given this greatest gift.

After the last rocket fell, he and I walked back to the school.  My heart was pounding with excitement and pride.  So quietly I had to strain to hear him, he said, “Kids can be mean.  You don’t deserve it.  Remember that.”   And I always have.

Whether the teasing stopped that day or whether it just lost its sting, I honestly don’t know – but after that, I do not remember being teased and tormented.  Fifth grade was a hard year for me, I know that – but when I look back in my memories, fifth grade is a gloriously sunny afternoon, setting off rockets with my teacher, and truly believing that I didn’t deserve to be teased.

As adults we hold such amazing power in the lives of the children who surround us.  I have often wondered if this teacher even remembers this day that so shaped my life, so turned around my feeling of self worth.  What was a spur of the moment decision for my teacher was a life-changing moment for me.  Children’s memories are an amazing thing; what a gift we are given when we have the opportunity to write on the slates of their memories.  May we all comprehend the power that we have in their young lives, and may we choose to fill their memories with empowerment, with kindness, and with rockets.

Sara