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We Are All So Special
By David Glenn Cox
Tuning through the channels, I saw Barney singing a song about how special all the children were. Each a wonderful shining star, all sweetness and light. I feel fortunate to have been raised in a generation where entertainment was entertainment and self-esteem was to be found through interaction instead of animation.
My parents told me that they loved me often, but that if I didn’t do as I was told I would be treated in a way I deserved. I could be wonderful but it wasn’t automatic; it wasn’t a given but something that I must try to achieve. My two older siblings made sure to destroy my fragile ego at an early age by telling me of Santa’s non-existence and the fallacy of the Easter bunny, and yet somehow, I survived. They once told me that my parents had tried to have me sent to an orphanage, but there wasn't any room for me.
Oh, the devastation! My fragile ego, you mean... I’m not... the center of the universe? Last week at a buffet restaurant, oh, it was so cute! A little youngster, about six years old, running through the aisles of the restaurant without any correction from his parents. So cute, the way the people carrying their plates of food had to dodge this little scrump monkey's antics. I think back to my own draconian upbringing and how my wicked parents made me sit at the table and how I thought “Don’t Touch!” was my last name for years.
I was well-educated by these events. I knew, for instance, that if my mother asked, “Do I need to take you to the rest room?” it wasn’t about hand washing. I was being trained to fit into their world; I wasn’t the nucleus of the nuclear family, I was an electron and I’d better stay in my orbit or there was going to be an explosion. My kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Marshall, was wonderful to us all; we all had teams and the teams would strive to clean up or to put our things away first. But do you know that some of those young children were mean and hateful and discriminated against other children, just because they wouldn’t help clean up!
They told Mrs. Marshall that they didn’t want Timmy on their team because he was lazy. They discriminated against Timmy in other ways, too. Why, when Timmy would tell them to get off the swing so that he could have a turn, they would say no! Using some excuse about waiting his turn or how they had just gotten on the swing themselves. So then when Timmy tried to involve them in a game that he created himself, a game called 'push you off!' they would complain to Mrs. Marshall. She would then send Timmy to play in the sandbox, and no matter how many sandcastles he stomped on, the other children just wouldn’t play with him!
Poor Timmy, a child born a generation before enlightenment. Before we knew that a child’s ego was as fragile as an ice crystal and mustn’t ever become bruiesed or calloused by lifes harsh realities. Now we know that Timmy was probably learning disabled or had ADD or had problems at home, and of course the answers and responsibilities to correct Timmy were solely those of the public school system. Had Timmy been in a private school facility, the answers were as close as the front door, the door out. They can pick and choose from among the best and the brightest; they have no need or tolerance for discipline problems.
Poor Timmy had to learn the old-fashioned way. One day he stepped on the wrong sandcastle and Bobby taught little Timmy a lesson about astronomy. When the dust cleared, Timmy had learned that he wasn’t the center of the universe, and he and Bobby went on to be great friends. They both handled problems the same way, how terrible and barbaric. But Timmy fit in where he fit in; he liked it that Bobby didn’t let him do whatever he wished. I wonder why?
Perhaps Timmy wanted someone to say no to him; Timmy was maybe wisest in his own diagnosis?
Poor little Alex Barton, the abused little Florida boy forced to spend most of his time in the principal’s office because of disciplinary problems. He had no Bobby to educate him; the school system failed him. This little child has to face the cruel reality that his teacher and classmates do not like him. Melissa Barton, the boy’s mother, said she is considering legal action after her son's kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class. Just on the off chance that something was awry, Mrs. Barton put a digital recorder in the boy's pants, just in case.
Mrs. War, our third grade substitute teacher, would draw a circle on the chalkboard and make offenders put their nose inside the circle. Oh, the humiliation, I don’t think she liked us children. I guess she should have been fired. No telling what sort of irreparable damage she did to the children’s self-esteem. I myself was denied recess for a simple failure to do my homework, called out in front of the whole class, embarrassed and denied recess, why the nerve of that hateful woman! While others frolicked and played in the sunshine, I was ostracized from my peers and forced to do my missing homework assignment.
In the fourth grade, my teacher, Mrs. Navertill, became so irritated and annoyed by my failure to learn my multiplication tables that she had the nerve and the audacity to raise her voice to me. Without testing to see if I was leaning disabled or disabled by some other cause, she accused me of being lazy! I thought to myself, you just wait until I tell my Mom! Then it occurred to me that my mother would probably agree with Mrs. Navertill and I would get yelled at twice! I guess my parents didn’t love me, (sniff) I was alone in this universe with this mean-spirited and hateful woman, as she yelled at me, “You're not going to recess, you're not going to lunch and you're not even going home! Until you learn your multiplication tables!”
So there I was, abused by a public employee, abandoned by my parents who should have protected me from this child-hating demon. I had no other choice but to learn my multiplication tables. Even now, years on from this traumatic event, I think of how my self-esteem was damaged by this demon drawing a line in the sand. How I was forced against my wishes to learn my multiplication tables and denied the view out the window of sunshine and birds singing and how my free spirit was crushed under the weight of this autocrat.
I feel sorry for Alex, but I feel just as sorry for the fourteen children who voted for Alex’s removal, for this was their one chance at kindergarten as well. I feel sorry for the whole Barton family because they feel it is the school system's fault more than their own. That, despite Alex’s previous disciplinary problems, they took him to a new school and said in effect, deal with him! Fix him! His mother had no apparent problem with Alex sitting in the principal’s office day after day. But when that public employee embarrassed her child by breaking the news to him that he wasn’t popular with his classmates, it was a revelation.
But maybe not a revelation to Alex. To his mother, perhaps, but the question arises as to whose pride was really hurt here. I bet Alex already knew that he wasn’t popular, and I bet he knew why, as well. A teacher with over a decade of service is being lynched in the public square because, of course, it can’t possibly be the five-year-old's fault. They’re all so special and all the center of the universe. They must be nurtured and protected from any intruding reality to the contrary. The world will be a better place once teachers learn the importance of protecting the child’s delicate ego. Of course we’ve yet to figure out how to do that while protecting the egos of the other children in the class, as well.
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