School

A hefty bit of reading.

Once upon a time I hated school. I feared it, dreaded it, and did everything I could think of to avoid it. Why on earth I became a teacher… well something happened.

I suspect that I started school a wee bit too young. Oh I started at the legally prescribed time, and Mom had to scrape me off of herself like too much butter smeared on bread as I clung to her not wanting to be left among strangers. But I was removed from her and left. It really wasn’t too bad at first. First we got to do nice things like dance and play music and get new colors and draw. But then we had to make letters and make them again and again. Soon they expected us to read! I wanted to look at pictures and have someone read to me. And this went on all year! Dreadfully dull. Why go to such a dull boring place? It was much nicer at home.

Second grade was even worse. I was expected to get a library card and check out BOOKS! Fortunately they had some pretty good picture books at the library, and though Mom was definitely disappointed that I wasn’t checking out books with very few pictures like my friend Louise, at least Mom would read to me. Then came “the test”. The school system had decided to give every kid the Wisconsin Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). We were told we’d be taking a test. We were told not to panic, not to worry, this “test” was not going to affect our grades. We were told to be sure to come and to have a good breakfast and to sleep well the night before, but not to worry. Okay, I did all of those things, slept well, ate well and I did not worry. On the test day we were again told not to worry and just read the questions and give the answers we thought were best. We were then instructed in how to fill out the answer sheet, which was meant to be read by a key punch operator. If you know what that means: good; and if you don’t then I can only say the sheet had columns with numbers down the left side of each column and each number was followed by four letters A, B, C, D with small ovals under the letters. We had to be sure to completely darken the oval under the letter that matched the answer we chose for that question, and we had to use a special pencil to do it.

First question: If you go outside at night what would you want to take with you? A) a doll, B) a blanket, C) a flashlight, D) a baseball bat. Well gee, it kinda depends on why I’m going out at night, doesn’t it? How am I supposed to answer this sorta thing? Well if I’m going out to play, maybe a doll, but if I’ve lost something maybe a flash light, I really don’t play baseball but if that puma came back like we had last winter and if Mom let me go out if there was a puma in the neighbourhood a baseball bat might be useful, but we don’t have one so I couldn’t take one anyway. But in summer I might wanna go out and camp out and then I’d take a blanket. I glanced around. Other kids are on question three or question four already. Finally I select one of the answers and read question two. It is just as bad. Other kids have done at least ten questions by now, and the teacher has a clock in her hand. I try to make a good choice for question two and stumble through question three, then four and five. They are all dreadful questions. By the time question six comes I devise a plan: Since none of this matters anyway – the teacher said it wouldn’t affect our grades at all – I will just make designs down the columns. For question six I chose A, and B for question seven, eight was a C and nine a D. Then I had a decision to make. I paused to consider which would be prettier: a D for ten or back to a C? I did this all the way to the end of the test, checking to be sure I didn’t put too many answers. Quite pleased with myself for not wasting my time on such rubbish, especially when it wouldn’t affect my grades, I didn’t think too much more of that “highly respected” test until I studied it when I took my degree in Psychology at the University of North Carolina.

In fact that test had repercussions and it affected my grades for years. My little solution produced a very strange portrait of me. When the “results” returned from being “tabulated”, there was shock. Mom was summoned for an urgent consultation and told that if she had had hopes of my ever attending university, she should put away that idea immediately. In fact she also ought to assume that I would not be going to high school. Indeed, and most unfortunately, probably the very best thing was to place me in a mental asylum for I was so retarded as to be almost completely unable to receive any education whatsoever. Of course this explained why I didn’t read like Louise! And why I also wasn’t doing well in math.

Fortunately Mom didn’t believe it. Dad partly believed it. But neither of them could really fight the system. Oh they kept me, and they sent me to school as often as they could pry me out of the house. I advanced through the grades only because Dad insisted that I be advanced and because the principal kept hoping I would come to school a few more days the following year… Principals continued to voice this hope each year until I actually graduated from high school.

Third, fourth and fifth grade had a few test repercussions in them. In fourth we built a scale model house, wired it, installed lights (flashlight bulbs) and a car battery with a switch so we could light up the house. It was fantastic. I loved it. Of course we had to keep notes of what we did and turn in our report at the end. Mine came back with a nice big F on it and the note that the work was too good to be mine. Yep, that WISC test didn’t hurt my grades at all! And one wonders why I didn’t WANT to go to school? Gee whiz!

Of course once we moved to Tryon things got better, until my school records arrived with that WISC report. The moment that arrived my grades tumbled. Math was getting harder too. Try as I could, the formulas we used would not give me right answers. I slaved over this stuff. I worked backward from the correct answer and devised my own formulas that would give me the right answers. I showed my breakthrough to my math teacher. He couldn’t follow my formulas, but he could see that they got me the right answers. The result: do everything twice, first with the text book formulas and then with your formulas. No joy in that, especially on a test when one is the only one doing twice the work.

Then, finally someone – probably my math teacher – suggested that my IQ be retested. Arrangements were made. This time it wasn’t the WISC or the Wisconsin Adult Intelligence Scale. Nope, it was a professional tester who came with twelve bags of tricks and all sorts of means of probing and assessing what MIGHT be going on. He basically refuted everything the dear old WISC had labeled me with way back in second grade. Laughing, he even told Mom that I had ended up testing him!

Dad constructed his own test – to test the new results. He borrowed one of my horse text books – which were not the trivial sort that most kids start with, or mere pretty picture books, but actual professional textbooks. Under the guise of seeing if I knew anything, whether I had understood what I seemed to be reading, he gave himself a week to read, absorb and make due notes to establish what he felt would be an adequate examination. Now Dad was no slouch. Normally he absorbed any book in about a day. I had absolutely NO fear about this test. I knew my books inside out, cover to cover and I could quote and give page numbers without needing to double check anything. It was probably the only time anyone EVER bested Dad at this game. I knew my subject. He was estatic.

The years I was riding probably saw me in school more often than any of the previous years combined. If I wanted to go riding, I had to go to school. But the last year of school I wasn’t riding, and the principal was once more after me. If I was absent one more day then I would not pass. So of course I had to test the theory. And the day after we went through the same routine. Mom was at her wits end. The truant office even paid a visit. After that, I promised Mom that I would go to school provided that no one ever mention school to me again as long as I live. She promised. I graduated and we all came home. Whew! No more school!

The morning after I graduated from High School, I woke with a new plan and came bounding down stairs to tell Mom: I was going to go to college and become a teacher. Speechless she dropped her cup of coffee!

End note: In 1998 I met my math teacher again and he praised my inginuity and cleverness in math. It was only then that I realised that what I had done had been a sign of intelligence rather than another symptom of failure and stupidity, which is still a holdover from the WISC. Yes, it affected my whole life.