I have
written about being a follower multiple times in my life. See, Jack Gantos’s
“The Follower” in Guys Write for Guys Read (ed. Jon Scieszka) is one of my favorite literary
prompts for students. I usually write with my students. Now, I am running out
of stories. Either that or I’m subconsciously blocking memories, for I’m pretty
sure that I didn’t learn to be a leader for quite a while. And some would still
debate whether I ever stopped being a follower. Regardless, these stories are a
little rarer now. Here’s a little twist about being a follower and not able to
speak up for myself.
In
Arkansas, you can’t start public school until you are five years old. I had
been reading more or less since I was two, but the school system still didn’t want
to take me. Perhaps in part because I wore a little on my mother’s patience,
and part because I needed something to stimulate my mind other than cartoons,
game shows, and torturing my little brothers, she wanted me in school. My
precociousness, however, was only accepted at a private school, though, so
that’s where I started: at Wilkes’ Academy Lil People School. (I recently
returned to the area; the school doesn’t exist anymore. The buildings currently
house a dance studio.) I was only four years old.
Despite
my youth, in Kindergarten I prided myself on being the top student in Ms.
Cogwell’s class: model citizen, top reader, the only kid who only had to go
half day instead of staying the full time and forced to take a nap after lunch.
A few incidents, however, showed me a little humility.
My very first experience having a substitute teacher was a scary if not traumatic one. I had never experienced anything like it. In addition to this chaos, our school, because of its small enrollment, as I soon found out, would sometimes do activities with another small private school or two. The first day with a sub happened to be one of those days. We were going to do some project with planets and Styrofoam balls—I had just learned what Styrofoam was called—and I was excited. However, I was shocked when I arrived at school to find my classroom overcrowded with strange kids and someone sitting at my desk.
“Who
was this kid, and why was he at my desk?” I wondered. Whoever he was, he was
loud and had a lot of friends. While I stood in the doorway, the adult in the
room called his name twice to put all four legs of the chair on the floor. I
decided to keep my eye on him. I took a seat on the floor close by.
Before
long, I was told to get back in my chair by this unfamiliar adult and to follow
the class rules. I was surprised. Someone else was in my desk! However, shy,
little me didn’t say anything; I just slumped into an empty chair somewhat
close to my desk. I didn’t have the guts to say anything back to this interloper.
Not
even five minutes later, as I was still trying to get my bearings on who all
these extra kids were, this old woman with stringy, gray hair was in my face, her
glasses slipping from her nose, her finger wagging. “You,” she said. I froze.
“And you, and you, and you, and you.” Five of us in all—two other kids from my
class, Robert and Shane, two outsiders including the dork at my desk, and me. “I’ve
had enough of your misbehavior (another new word for this Kindergarten kid).
You will sit out during the planet activity. You are very much in trouble!”
Gulp.
I
tried to protest her sentence passed for the crime I didn’t commit, but the
words stuck in my throat, choked on nervousness and naiveté. I could not summon
the courage or the sense to speak up and protest my innocence. She turned away.
I was lost. I so sunk into my anxious self that I didn’t even know what the
others had done to anger the substitute. Oblivious would probably be the best
word to describe the moment.
The
other boys shrugged off the reprimand and continued being obnoxious, ignoring
this lady. I, however, had never been in trouble before in school. I didn’t
know how to handle it. It wasn’t fair. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I just
wanted my desk. I wanted my teacher. I clearly remember shaking and sobbing—quietly,
of course--especially after the others had filed out of the room and the lights
were clicked off. She left the five of us to our own devices—not a slick move
on the sub’s part I soon registered. While the rest of the kids went downstairs
to take part in the fun of paint and wires and Styrofoam and who knows what
else, I remained stationary in the seat, sniffling. The other four hooligans sneaked
out the classroom door, ignoring me completely, leaving me alone in the dark, disheveled
classroom. After the group returned, nobody talked to me, nor did I move from
my chair until it was time to go home. I never told anybody. I didn’t know how.
The
next morning, not many hours passed before I learned that my bewildering isolation
the previous day actually saved me. Ms. Cogwell was back, which lowered my
anxieties, but more importantly, Robert and Shane were also conspicuously
missing from the morning activities, although I had seen them on the blacktop
before the bell rang. Relieved to see some sense of normalcy, I finished my
work early (as I usually did), and my teacher granted me time to browse in the
small school library—one of my favorite activities at Lil People School.
To reach the library, I had to walk past the principal’s office. As I scurried by, Shane, straight-backed and pale, sat outside the open door on a rickety, wooden folding chair. I slowed. He didn’t say anything, just stared at the wall opposite, his lips quivering. Through the open office door, I spied Robert bent over, receiving the unfriendly end of a paddle. (Yes, it was still legal back then.) Perhaps the most distinct memory of this incident was the crack of wood on backside resonating in the corridor as I scampered a little quicker in hopes of reaching the stacks and disassociating myself from criminal mischief. If I had been associated with the guilty, that could have been my butt being blistered!
In that collision of space and time, my tiny mind swore not
to get in trouble at school. Ever. That paddle put the fear in me. I also knew
that if I got into trouble at school, it would be worse at home…and I did not
want to find out what that meant.
Since then I knew that because I
had no spine, I had to be careful whom I followed. At times, I failed my own
advice, but I would like to think that for the most part, this lesson was a
fairly easy one for me to learn.
https://boyslife.org/hobbies-projects/projects/164781/how-to-make-a-model-of-the-solar-system/
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