Lindsay Yang

Round, round face with big cheeks and bangs. This was my first impression of Lindsay Yang. It wasn’t until later I got to know her lopsided grin with the wide gaps between her teeth. Or her long, dark hair that swings back and forth in an exaggerated motion because she’s a little pigeon-toed and walks with a slight waddle. Or her obsession with stickers.

It wasn’t until later that I got to see her smile because Lindsay was a pretty surly first grader for the first two months we read together. As a reading tutor, I find it to be fairly common that students aren’t too keen on reading with you, in the beginning at least, but most of them don’t mind getting out of class. Lindsay wouldn’t even allow me that. She never spoke to me as we walked from her classroom to my work space each morning. She sighed deep, painful sighs if I asked her to repeat a sentence and would sometimes shut down completely, refusing to participate at all. We were both very frustrated with one another, but I continued to smile at her anyway. One day right before Thanksgiving break, however, I lost it.

I told her that she would not be receiving a sticker that day.

You might be thinking, what?! No sticker?? You monster! She’s just a little girl! She doesn’t know any better! Please, oh please, punish her in any other way you can think of, but do not deny her a sticker!!

Well, I did. I denied her a sticker.

The following day was just as bad, if not worse. She was reeeally upset about the sticker incident from the day before. So, I did what I had to do.

I refused her a sticker again.

On the morning of day three, I was nervous. I didn’t know what to expect. I hadn’t planned out my next move. I picked up Lindsay from her classroom. She said, “Hi, Miss Kai Lee,” in a sad little voice, but she said hello! I was floored.

“Good morning, Lindsay,” I said. “Are you going to read with me today?”

“I think so,” she replied, and she did. From then on she was no longer sullen. She even lost her unhealthy attachment to stickers.

I know this because one morning when I was standing outside her classroom, waiting for her, I saw a fellow Minnesota Reading Corps tutor with a huge sticker on her shirt. “Where did you get that?!” I asked. “I want one!”

“Oh, Miss Kai Lee,” Lindsay scolded, “you don’t need that sticker! Today is a beautiful day!”

She continued to read with me, talk with me, and even laugh with me up until the end of the school year when she graduated from my Minnesota Reading Corps services.

I will be sure to send her a packet of stickers when she graduates with a degree in English Literature from the University of Minnesota in 15 years so she can use them, or refuse them, with her future students.