My Education, part 3: Beginning Public School

My mother taught my brother and me at home until 1998, when I was finishing 6^th grade and Isaac was finishing 4^th. My parents separated that year, and both Isaac and I started public school in the fall. I had attended I think a month or so of first grade (after which my mother decided it wasn’t the best place for me to learn) and I believe two weeks of fifth grade (after which I decided it wasn’t the best place for me to learn) in public schools. I had just lost my identity as a family and my identity as an alternative-schooler (and moved house twice in five months), so for me a sharp identity-less panic was cast over the general malaise that is middle school adolescence. *

Even while I was attempting to just keep my head down and get good grades so no one would look at me and I could try to find some solid mental ground to stand on, I was horrified by some of the things I found in public middle school. Not that it was a bad school or that I had bad teachers. Many of my teachers were good, a few of them were excellent and there is only one who I would credit with increasing my anxiety. For one thing, I found that cliques were real, even though every book or movie or anecdote I had ever heard of seemed to prove that all cliques did was build walls between people who should have enjoyed each other.

More than that, I found that I had trouble relating to how the students learned. They were not used to having any control in their learning, and so didn’t often seem to evaluate the worth of a piece of learning outside of what it meant for their grade.

The experience that stands out most illustrating the difference I felt between our minds was a lecture by the eighth grade Social Studies teacher while I was in seventh grade. I don’t remember if it was just my grade or the whole school that was required to attend, but I remember being sent rather unexpectedly to the auditorium first thing in the morning instead of to my first period class. This teacher was originally from Laos and he told us the story of his family’s escape from their probable deaths in that country. I have never been a morning person, or terribly fond of changes in my schedule without my consent, so I don’t remember being thrilled to be in the auditorium at 8am when I was expecting to be in Reading class but I was moved by the offer he was making of such a personal experience. And I was impressed by the odds against this kind of story coming to me in Ames, Iowa. So I resolved to thank him for it.

I didn’t want to. I didn’t want his attention when I talked to him. I didn’t want to have to talk to anyone. I didn’t really want anyone to look at me. I just wanted to get through my classes so I could go back home. But I finally convinced myself that, even if not because of the magnitude of what he had offered, I had to thank him because everyone else would and I would be the obvious one missing.  So I wrung my hands for a while when everyone was milling around in the cafeterias afterwards and finally walked up and thanked him for what he had shared. He said I was welcome, and I think said another warm-hearted thing, and then as quickly as I could I made an awkward retreat.

A week or so later during a break in my Social Studies class, my teacher asked me (in front of everyone) if that had been me who thanked his colleague who had made that presentation. I said I had, and he thanked me and said I had been The Only** student who had thanked him, and that the presenter had been very moved that I had spoken to him.

Aside from this total backfire-- attention-wise-- of what I had been trying to accomplish, I could not believe this. I could and can hear some homeschool parent voices in my mind saying that public school kids don’t have manners, but honestly I think those voices can be dismissed pretty quickly. There were many students who were at least as worried about looking good as I was, and many also who were genuinely kind people. Somehow this just wasn’t personal for them, somehow they didn’t relate to him enough to want to talk to him. Or, if they wanted to, some other social force stopped them.

*I realize this is more or less a demand for pity, but this had a huge effect on the way that I experienced public school and I haven’t found an honest way to talk about this phase of my education without it. It probably also made my opinion of middle school much more negative. Please bear with me.

**I remember “The Only student”, and it may have been “one of the only students” or “one of the only students who wasn’t in his own classes.”