Elementary: exclusion

I've always been called an "exceptional student," beginning in elementary school, but academic success resulted from a sort of forced seclusion: I found it difficult to assimilate into groups of other children, and they, in turn, avoided me like the plague. I'm not certain why, but it's as though the other kids distanced themselves from me by instinct. Then again, much of my behavior was pretty off-putting. I alternated between introversion and hyperactivity. You know that kid who would be dead silent, perhaps frightened, but would abruptly change gears and start acting up? Laughing loudly (hysteria?), always looking for attention? That was me. (I still tend to be loud, and I’m horrified when I realize I'm doing it). You can’t really fault the children for keeping a safe distance--I probably scared them with my instability.

So, being isolated, I focused on my homework and I began reading. My parents had an old set of the Encyclopedia Brittannica--the volumes were off-white with brown labels on the binding--and I started playing with them. I'd just open a volume at random and see what I could find. The illustrations attracted me, and this is where I discovered Graeco-Roman art, Henry Moore, Big M's Pieta, Brancusi's Bird (of course, I didn't think of these things as "art," but it was my introduction to aesthetics). In the second grade (what is that? Seven years old?) my teacher escorted the class to the school library; the librarian explained to us what a library is, and then let us loose. That's when I found the first major literary influence on my life: D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths. I adored it (and, nearly as much, the D’Aulaires’s book on Norse mythology).

In the third grade I focused on getting through the Little House books. I also picked up a few Alfred Hitchcock anthologies for young adults. This was my introduction to the "hook handed killer," the "roommate without a head," "the black ribbon," etc. All tried and true, albeit basic, scary stories. Funny. I've never realized that I began reading "horror" as young as eight.

After I learned what a library was, I demanded that my mother take me to the town library. Mind you, we were living in a very small town at the time, and it held an equally small library. Half of its space was devoted to children's books, which is good. Especially because the librarian made sure that children stayed in the children's section and didn't venture into the adults' stacks. So I whipped through their selection of Beverly Cleary books, some Judy Blume (Are You There God? It's Me, Maragaret and Forever weren't included in the stacks). But these bored me. My thrills came from fairy tales, sort of. Twisted fairy tales with bitter endings. I recall loving Ruth Manning-Sanders's wonderful series of folktales. I think I can still recite "Goldenhair" from A Book of Ghosts and Goblins. I loved her Book of Mermaids as well.

By the fourth grade, we'd moved. I immediately began haunting the Ocotillo Branch of the local library. Although it was probably a modest-sized building at the time, I thought it huge and wonderful; morever, I was able to break free of the children's area. Consequently, I found myself in both David Copperfield and Jane Eyre (these two read largely under the sheets with a mini-flashlight). I identified with these characters in numerous, probably obvious, ways.

At my school, as with many, there was an end-of-year convocation where administration would distribute awards. Mandatory attendance, by the way, for the entire school body. Like my fourth grade colleagues, I was to gain a certificate in mathematics. A piece a paper that announced I knew the multiplication tables etc. My teacher that year, Mr. Emerson, announced each child's name, and they went up on stage to retrieve this certificate. As is cmmon, everyone applauded. When it was my turn, someone began booing. I don't know why. Probably just your average child's cruelty kicking in. Anyway, other kids picked up on it. Soon, everyone was booing as I crossed the stage. I grabbed my piece of paper and began to take off. My teacher took hold of me. He had something else to give to me--a lovely, diploma-sized piece of paper that announced I was the "best reader in the x area." It was signed by the governor. Okay, I know that seems hokey now, but it impressed me then, and it made up for, a little bit, the booing that hadn't stopped while I was onstage.

Later that afternoon, I was helping Mr. Emerson clear up our classroom. He was hesitant, but kind. "It must have been hard going onstage with all of that." I don't know how I responded or what I replied, but chances are that the family's macho stance bore me out. But I appreciate Mr. Emerson's sympathy. Because it was hard to have several hundred people deriding you. and the faculty didn't do anything to intervene. (Now that I think of it--the faculty's non-interference might be perceived by the audience as authorizing the audience's behavior; I probably took it that way too--"Nobody intervened because nobody thought I shouldn't be booed"). Anyway. . .

At the end of my fourth grade year, the school suggested to my mother that I take an IQ test. I ranked 159. I don’t know if that number was true or not. As a result of the IQ thing, the school placed me in an experimental class for “gifted” children. The curriculum focused on self-study. Several “topic” stations were distributed throughout the classroom, and your task was to spend an hour at each one at some point throughout the class day. You completed assignments at your own pace while the teacher and a teacher’s aid floated about offering any necessary help. I loved the class, I loved my schoolmates, I learned about Phyllis Wheatley, Judaism, Henry VIII, and Medieval living conditions. I felt “right.”

After six months (in the middle of the school year), I was returned to my “normal” fifth grade class, much to my “normal” classmates’ mirth. I was humiliated. Nobody explained why I was moved from the “gifted” class, so I assumed it was because I wasn’t smart enough and was, therefore, deserving of my classmates’ scorn.

Years late, my mother told me that it wasn’t because I wasn’t “smart enough”; rather, my excitability proved too distracting for the other students.

The following year, in a different school, but my loudness again backfired on me. My teacher placed my desk so that it faced the wall, outside of the group. He ignored me if I raised my hand in class, and my classmates were ordered to not speak with me. This continued for several months. When I was time to rearrange the desks (as this fellow was wont to do), I asked him, in private, if I could please be re-admitted to the group, and he agreed. He changed his mind when “rearrangement day” arrived. I remained facing the wall. Allow my sixth grade self a little pity: this extends beyond being the last one picked for a kickball team.

Then again, this all certainly looks very whingy, doesn’t it? Sometimes I’m not sure if I’m making mountains out of molehills; alternately, I’m concerned that readers will think I’m exaggerating these experiences. But this is the way things were done in the late 1970s.

I should add that, following my eviction from the “gifted class,” my “acting up” didn’t cease. In fact, it was compounded. I began to behave inappropriately in a sexual sense. It was compulsive more than anything else, and that, I think, was associated more with how adults had sexualized me more than some precocious sex drive. Anyway, I got called into the school counselor’s office one late spring afternoon. My teacher had asked the school psych to meet me. I stopped my actions dead after that--the shame that other people knew. Yes, I should have known better. But I didn’t. My “boundaries” were more than “squiffy.” They just didn’t exist.

When I think about this, I'm overcome with self-loathing, disgust, and shame about my actions, by not knowing what I was doing to myself; that is, setting myself up for scorn and others' disgust. This is the first time I've ever discussed this episode in any capacity whatsoever. I'm a bit torn, a bit ambivalent, and I might delete the entire entry.

Coward's update: I caved and edited the latter part of this post. The details are beside the point anyway.