By an extraordinary coincidence, I just recently met the current principal of my elementary school. Calling him by first name gave me a textbook case of cognitive dissonance.

In my mind, the staff at Condit Elementary will always be female, twice my height, shellacked with hair spray, and dressed for the '70s (in some cases, the '60s and '50s, in keeping with Bellaire's fashion speed). They resembled our mothers enough to prevent our ever challenging them; I don't recall any outright defiance in the classroom, ever.

Enough of them smoked to make the teachers' lounge a room you could find blindfolded. Only one teacher was young enough for me to have a crush on, and she was an assistant. They all drove sedans.

Our principal, a tense, wrinkled woman with beehive hair and a pointed face, paid visits to our classrooms over any minor crisis. She lectured us holding her arms straight at her sides, rolling her fingers as if she'd just found cobwebs on them. To me, this looked like a threat to use her nails on us. However, to my knowledge she never actually laid a hand on any child; being made to wait outside her office for an hour was the worst kind of punishment.

That's not to say we had no fun. The recess game of choice was kickball, played with a big, red, pneumatic ball that drop-kicked with a bang. The challenge was getting it over the fielders' heads but short of the six-foot chain-link fence; that was an out, and the teacher had to closely monitor whoever she chose to retrieve it. You didn't want to send the most eager kid, as he was also the most likely to run headlong into a passing car.

Once that ritual had worn out our teachers' nerves, they switched us to hitting a volleyball with our fist. No way could we put it over a fence, mainly because it was pumped up so hard our knuckles bled.

On late spring and early autumn days it must've been 90 degrees out there on the asphalt. Somehow we didn't seem to mind. Teachers must have hated recess.

I remember all my teachers' names. I would feel strange including them here because by now, many of them are dead.

There's something to ponder: For all the sing-songs we made up about "killing" our teachers, we never stopped to think how we'd feel once they were actually gone.

the kitchen was staffed by two black women in hair nets. If they had help feeding 400 kids, I never saw it. One called us "honey" in the Southern way that meant something like the opposite: "Honey, don't you bang yo' tray like that," and when you saw her inch-long fingernails curled over the edge of your cobbler bowl you knew she had leverage that you didn't want to think about.

The two of them baked vast sheets of tall, brown-topped yeast rolls that melted in your mouth; the golden edges came from butter ladled on as they emerged from the oven. You could smell them a block away. One time somebody's mom persuaded them to share the recipe with all of us, and none of our mothers ever got it right.

A hot plate-lunch cost $.40 in 1970, inflating to $.95 by '76. Breaded beef cutlet was my favorite, because I could sop up the gravy and mashed potatoes with the yeast roll. We could get an extra bun for $.05, and cutlet day was the one to splurge on. The half-pint carton of whole milk was never enough; the bigger boys always bought a second.

We dined eight to a table in the "cafetorium," which always smelled of hot butter, polyurethane, and disinfectant. Each day the custodian broke down all 20 tables to clean the floor. One afternoon, all the fourth-grade boys were sent to help him. That was when the fourth-grade girls, rounded up into one classroom, saw a special movie, which none of them would talk about later. At least not with the boys.

one day our third-grade teacher took an empty desk in the front of the classroom, turned it around, and sat down, signaling one of those monologues that would, in short order, have us leering at the clock and doodling.

She talked vaguely and at length about two new students who would be joining us that week. We had no idea why this was a big deal; previously, new kids just showed up looking terrified and took a seat in the back until they figured out how to fit in.

Before the next morning's opening bell, as dozens of white kids and a smattering of Hispanics played pick-up games all over the schoolyard, a taxicab rolled up to the front gate. Two black children got out and were escorted to the office by our assistant principal. Later, after we'd all settled into our classrooms, she led them to their respective third-grade teachers, who introduced them to us as Ruby and Delano Johnson, brother and sister.

This was no Little Rock Central High moment. Nor was it Brown v. Board of Education, because neither of the children lived near Condit. They hadn't been denied access to our school for their race; in fact, they had been enrolled precisely because of it.

And with that single act, the 400-pupil Condit Elementary was desegregated.

I have no idea how that measure got approved, but I imagine that in its wake, there was no small amount of look-busy whistling around H.I.S.D. headquarters until some federal judge turned his attention elsewhere.

amid these warm and quirky memories of elementary school, I have none for what I received in the way of actual education. By the time I entered kindergarten, I knew how to read. My classmates broke into applause after I buzzed through a whole page in our reading-book, stumble-free. So, the first grade—of which many hours were spent in a "reading circle"—taught me mostly how to daydream with gusto.

My teacher at least noticed that I was ahead of the game. One day she escorted me around to the other classrooms to boast that I had spelled "Rumpelstiltskin" correctly after hearing it once. Later, the same teacher traipsed me down the hall to show the results of my Iowa Test of Basic Skills to the other teachers; I scored in the 99th percentile across-the-board.

But there was no talk of advancing me to a higher grade. I would be allowed to progress through school no faster than the slowest student my age.

at some point the boredom drove me to feign illness just to get out of class. "Miss Scott, my stomach hurts," I'd say, so often and so predictably that she'd have the hall pass ready by the time I reached her desk. The school nurse always asked if I'd been to the bathroom, and I always answered yes, and several times the ploy enabled me to go home. Eventually my family doctor pronounced me healthy; the mystery ailment—tedium—was never identified.

My second-grade teacher took less interest in me. She would retire at the close of that year—meaning she'd been in the classroom since about D-Day—and she pretty much phoned it in. We endured a daily chore called "seatwork," which involved filling blanks on mimeographed pages while the teacher read a novel. Missing letters, numbers, words, that sort of pedantic stuff—all well below my level and so boring I couldn't stand it. No sooner had the smudgy blue sheets hit my desk than I checked out, Calvin-and-Hobbes style, off to an adventure in my head. At some point the teacher called my mother in to discuss my flagging participation. Neither of them seemed to have any insight, and I couldn't explain myself. I simply didn't want to do such dreadfully repetitive work.

In the third grade, I had the blessing of a teacher who recognized my aptitude. She flattered me in a note to my parents, calling attention to my "God-given talents." Still, I don't recall her doing much on my behalf; grade advancement still was off the table, and I never heard of anyone else getting bumped ahead.

By this time, the aptitude tests classified me a full two years above my level.

by fourth grade i had begun to view teachers as adversaries. Few of them seemed very bright—I corrected their English so often they threatened to dismiss me—and many appeared to be marking time rather than taking interest in their charges. I started acting out in unconventional ways—signing my papers with cartoon-character names, for example—because in those days "normal" disobedience set one up for corporal punishment.

In my last couple of years at Condit, I studied nothing, and that habit served me poorly the rest of my academic years. I never learned how to learn things unless they sparked some interest within me. My fantasy world shielded me from the grinding boredom of textbooks, chalkboards, and repetitive exercises.

In the final weeks of sixth grade, I remember the excitement when a representative from the junior-high came to offer us course sign-up sheets. I elected violin and French, eager for something—anything—to show that I could rise to a challenge if only one were available. These foreign disciplines would be my way of breaking free, soaring high over the pack, unleashing my potential.

Both courses filled up before I got there.

Posted by: Michael Rittenhouse at 02:30 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 1611 words, total size 11 kb.