What I Learned In School

One of the most important things I learned in school, and one that it took all the way through elementary school to get through my head, was not to get ahead. Reading ahead in the book to learn what was coming next was strictly forbidden. Even next week's arithmetic problems and spelling words were dangerous territory. Pages or chapters were assigned, and the end of the assignment meant you stopped there, or else.

Even more of a horror was to learn things that weren't even part of the curriculum for theentire school year. This was a major problem for me, with my sister who was over a year older than I was, and who was a year, and, later, two years ahead of me in school. The problem with my sister was that she liked to teach me what she knew, presumably so we'd both know it. I enjoyed learning what she knew and soaked it up as fast as she could put it out there. I'm told she taught herself to read at the age of three, and taught me when I was no older than four. This caused me no end of problems when I was supposed to have been learning to read and would rather have been reading, which was not on the agenda.

I was very proud of what I knew for the first several years, and I didn't know any better than to march right into the classroom and demonstrate my new knowledge for all to see. The connection between said demonstrations and the time I spent sitting on the bench in the hallway of my elementary school remains vague to me, even now.

Another thing I learned in school was that my word was good for absolutely nothing, especially in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, such as the statement of a peer. This lesson was learned early and painfully, as part of the general "Life is not fair" lesson that I'm still trying without success to find a way around.

Having moved some six hundred miles away from my parents' hometown and all our relatives, I did not see much of my grandparents, and I felt this lack keenly as a child. One year at Christmas, my mother's parents drove down and stayed for several days, bringing what in memory seem to be some rather odd Christmas presents. Anything from my beloved relatives was a treasure, however, and when I found that a missing pencil I had received from my grandparents had turned up in the possession of some kid in my class, I knew that I had to have it back. I pointed out to the teacher that the kid had my pencil, which in retrospect must not have seemed like such a big deal to her. I was not at all articulate and unable to express the overwhelming feelings I had at times; much less to make rational, Perry Mason-like legal arguments back in those days, and I can't recall what I said to the teacher; but she was not impressed. The kid, for whatever reason, claimed the pencil as his. "He says it's his," the teacher said, and that was the end of that. It was useless, had I done it, to point out that the pencil in question was gaily decorated with red, white and blue elephants and the legend, "McLean County Republican Committee," and that Alabama has no McLean County. My gift had left my possession forever.

This lesson has been reinforced again and again, as my best arguments and my most logical reasoning have been put forth against the flimsiest of excuses for withholding from me what I have earned. It doesn't matter what I say, what evidence I have, what obvious lies have been set against me. "It's the pencil all over again," I think.