Impressions of the Third Grade: Collage Community Contest #1

@georgeboya has created a Collage Community! I'm sending a call out to my Steemit friends--scientists, artists, naturalists, writers, philosophers--whatever the area of expertise. A collage doesn't require technical skill, just imagination. Not only is it fun to make, but putting one together is actually great for the brain.

The Contest

At the moment, there's a contest running in the Collage Community. The picture at the top of this page represents my entry into the contest.

My art efforts tend to be narratives. Even so, there's obvious symbolism in my picture. While the collage tells a story by itself, there's actually a true story behind it.

The Scream

When I thought of telling this particular story in my collage, the image of Edvard Munch's classic evocation of angst came to mind. His painting, The Scream, is said to be the second most famous in the world.

For the purposes of my collage, the central figure in Munch's painting was excerpted and inserted into the center foreground of my picture. Munch's angst-ridden figure represents my experience in the third grade.

This was not a good year for me, at least not the first half :)

A Mountain to Climb

When I entered the third grade, I couldn't read. My second grade teacher probably passed me on because she didn't want to get stuck with me for another ten months.

In November of third grade, my new teacher--a kind woman--wrote my mother a note and advised that I was "doing poorly". My collage shows just how "poorly" I was doing.

Every day was filled with humiliation. The consensus was growing among family and school staff that I was "slow". I certainly believed that to be true. Not only was I slow, but I bore the weight of another stigma--conspicuous poverty.

If you look at the details in my collage, you will notice that my classmates have milk snacks. I have none. They have lunchboxes. I have a paper bag. They have pencil cases. I have a pencil.

Being poor was inconvenient and taught me to be guarded about my private life, but the condition was not a source of palpable distress. It was more a gnawing, chronic embarrassment. The inability to read, however, inflicted acute pain. And every day that I failed to perform, salt was rubbed into the wound.

Phonics

I can't remember precisely when my teacher decided to teach me phonics. I do remember, however, what happened when she did. Suddenly, words made sense. With this instruction, my teacher gave me a portable skill, one I could apply to any book I opened.

The revelation, the system, was my liberation. In very little time I outgrew the basic reader I'd been assigned at the beginning of the year, and graduated to a standard third grade reader. I flew through that. The teacher gave me a more advanced reader. By the end of the year, I was in a group by myself.

In a few months I had gone from the bottom of the class, to the very top.

Life After Reading

When I reflect upon my education, sometimes, I think of the past in two phases: before reading and after reading. Painful as life before reading was, it was also instructive. I learned independence. It is natural for me to separate myself from consensus and to form my own judgments about people, and events.

Life Goes On

After reading, life at home wasn't much different. My mother still struggled to find the resources to take care of the family. People still couldn't come to the house because it wasn't "fit for company".

Home

As adolescence loomed, my mother decided we had to make a change. In October of my sixth grade we moved to New York City. My mother's family helped us settle into a Brooklyn apartment. Everything was new and strange to me. Intimidating. Then one day I discovered something I'd never seen before: a library.

Can you imagine what that meant to me?

My Collage

All elements used are in the public domain. Once I settled upon the Munch painting as a central theme, the rest fell into place.
There were desks , and students, and a blackboard , and a bag , and a pencil and lunchboxes , and pencil cases. I needed a menacing teacher, so I used a silhouette , gave him a sinister head and owl eyes . Letters on the board are supposed to be in Sanskrit (though I don't know) and

Editing was done with GIMP and Microsoft Paint. A couple of embellishments were added through Paint 3D.

Evolution of the Piece

Here are some of the major steps the piece went through as it came to life--there were a lot more steps (and missteps):

Thank you, @georgeboya

I think it's obvious I had great fun making this collage. Though my talents may be limited, my enthusiasm is boundless. I hope others will jump in and join the fun. Communities are the future of Steemit, I think, and proactive Steemians like @georgeboya provide the energy necessary for realization of that future.

Thank you for spending your time with me

Steem on!