Cover
I once looked forward to the parent teacher conference days. I'd hear what a good, quiet, intelligent girl I was. But in fourth grade, I hit a wall. Worse, I never heard the whistle, nor saw the lights, never even realized I was standing on the tracks, when Reality slammed me down. Pummeled and splintered me like a small rag doll, I was sobbing shockily.
"She has not been turning in her math homework. I'm afraid she does not know her multiplication tables. I want her in the lower track."
No, not in with the run of the mill fourth and fifth graders, I panicked. I read at a high school level. Likewise science and social studies. So what that long division went way over my head? I'd ignored the arithmetic I had no skill for, no understanding of. I'd thrown away my homework. Simple. Problem solved.
"Did you think this would go away? That I wouldn't find out?" Mom. As angry and incredulous as I had ever seen her. Well, in as much as I thought at all, I'd assumed that long division and times tables would be over after a week or so (like the industrial exports of Michigan) never to be needed again. But. No. Numbers were not going away. Realization imploded. The hot, wet shame of being caught, of being wrong, of being stupid, swelled up and made my belly ache.
My brother's old index cards were dug out, and I filled them with numbers separated by Xs. I felt stung by this abrupt slide down the ladder. I felt the sting in my hands. My chest felt bruised, breathing was hard. My head hurt, hard bumped. I hated that Mom's hand was on my back, forcing me upwards, brooking no slumping. Every evening, all weekend, she tested me, over and over. I even dreamed reciting the six times, seven times, eight times eight equals sixty... four?
I ground my teeth, enduring the half & half fourth and fifth grade readers lurching through stories I'd read the first week. Struggling to get the numbers straight in math class, I lived in stinging, shaming, despairing tears. I railed against the waste of being held back in my other classes, just because of times tables unmemorized. I so yearned to be back with the mostly fifth graders. I hated the bullygirls who considered it justice that I'd been taken down a notch. Adding "crybaby" to the taunts I'd mostly kept my head below, before.
With great resentment, I stuffed those cursed tables into my brain. Only when I'd multiplied my age a few times would I value them as study skills. I studied hard, then, only to build up a shell of knowledge to keep them away from me, parents and teachers and bullies alike. I vowed to never be caught out again. I would be perfect, beyond rebuke, would keep every picky rule they could dish out, and keep subversion in my heart.
"She has not been turning in her math homework. I'm afraid she does not know her multiplication tables. I want her in the lower track."
No, not in with the run of the mill fourth and fifth graders, I panicked. I read at a high school level. Likewise science and social studies. So what that long division went way over my head? I'd ignored the arithmetic I had no skill for, no understanding of. I'd thrown away my homework. Simple. Problem solved.
"Did you think this would go away? That I wouldn't find out?" Mom. As angry and incredulous as I had ever seen her. Well, in as much as I thought at all, I'd assumed that long division and times tables would be over after a week or so (like the industrial exports of Michigan) never to be needed again. But. No. Numbers were not going away. Realization imploded. The hot, wet shame of being caught, of being wrong, of being stupid, swelled up and made my belly ache.
My brother's old index cards were dug out, and I filled them with numbers separated by Xs. I felt stung by this abrupt slide down the ladder. I felt the sting in my hands. My chest felt bruised, breathing was hard. My head hurt, hard bumped. I hated that Mom's hand was on my back, forcing me upwards, brooking no slumping. Every evening, all weekend, she tested me, over and over. I even dreamed reciting the six times, seven times, eight times eight equals sixty... four?
I ground my teeth, enduring the half & half fourth and fifth grade readers lurching through stories I'd read the first week. Struggling to get the numbers straight in math class, I lived in stinging, shaming, despairing tears. I railed against the waste of being held back in my other classes, just because of times tables unmemorized. I so yearned to be back with the mostly fifth graders. I hated the bullygirls who considered it justice that I'd been taken down a notch. Adding "crybaby" to the taunts I'd mostly kept my head below, before.
With great resentment, I stuffed those cursed tables into my brain. Only when I'd multiplied my age a few times would I value them as study skills. I studied hard, then, only to build up a shell of knowledge to keep them away from me, parents and teachers and bullies alike. I vowed to never be caught out again. I would be perfect, beyond rebuke, would keep every picky rule they could dish out, and keep subversion in my heart.
Posted by Zhoen on Tuesday, September 19, 2006
8 comments:
(o)
Vivid. Ow.
I'm swept back to gym class. My hurdles were literally hurdles. The track hurdles in the spring, and the vault, when my school got funding for a vault, in the winter. I wouldn't, couldn't jump over things, regardless of the running start. The irony didn't hit me until later.
On the uneven bars, I got in trouble for yelling "Jesus Christ!" when dropping from the top bar to the bottom. But really. Who comes up with these things?
I was one of the best, if not the best, maths students in my year at secondary school. And I have never in my life known my multiplication tables.
I almost wish that someone had forced me to learn them.
I know the social implications of crying. I only wish I had control of mine. Frustrating and shaming, I can neither turn on what my father called 'the waterworks' nor off. When I was trying to be an actor, I couldn't make myself cry.
C-love. Makes sense to me. Uneven bars routines look miraculous and impossible. But vault is the one most gymnasts complain about. Since I was in catholic school, that exclamation would have elicited no end of purgatory.
Pacien. That is what calculators are for. I still don't quite have anything above 5X memorised for sure. Except the 9X, because it's so easy to figure out.
I feel I should add that my mom and I played a lot of Scrabble together. This is when she started making me keep score. I am glad she did that.
Eek!
In fourth grade, I was permitted to endlessly tidy the construction paper cupboard with the other smartest girl in class, while everyone else learned the stuff that she and I somehow picked up by osmosis or something. I learned I did not have to study, or even pay attention in class, to get As. That lesson did not serve me well over time! In tenth grade, I brought home a D in history. The teacher told my mother it was because I didn't take notes in class, so my mother told me to look like I was taking notes. That worked, but it surely didn't alter my sense of entitlement, nor my very secret knowledge that I was really not smart enough to learn anything.
I wonder what would have happened if I had been put with the slower kids and actually made to learn stuff. You seem to have made it work for you, zhoen.
Imagine if the 'smart' kids were expected to actually go as far as they could, and were pushed to do more and more.
What useless torture children are forced to endure! I don't remember a single thing I "learned" in school before the age of about fifteen when I started taking art classes. But somehow I was always good at spelling and I started reading very early. Don't know how because I can't remember anyone teaching me. I think it's only when you really want to know about a subject that it takes hold of your brain and becomes part of you. Ivan Illich ("Deschooling Societ") had the right idea about education, in my opinion.
Well, Playis the way.
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