How I Learned

by Shamus Young

"My turn!" says a little girl. I stop bouncing and look at her. Is she talking to me? "My turn!" she says again. My face goes red with embarrassment. I was taking her turn! I didn't know it was her turn. I don't know how this works! Nobody explained it to me. How do you get it to be your turn? I get off the ball and sit down. I never try to use them again. I don't want to be stealing people's turns, and the whole thing is simply too stressful for me.

I think the rise of ADD, ADHD, LD, dyslexia, and all of the other alphabet soup syndromes are just a rise in the number of square pegs being jammed into round holes. Some kids have exceptional mathematical ability and are weak with language. Others are good at language but fumble with numbers. Most are balanced between the two. School seems to be designed around the idea that everyone learns at the same speed using the same techniques at the same age, and everyone who fails to fit this model must therefore have some sort of "problem".

But no, I'm supposed to write these words into these tiny little blank spaces? It's so hard to write that small, and I don't see any reason to do it. I doodle instead. The teacher gets frustrated with me sometimes, but I don't value this work and I'm not going to put myself through the hassle of filling out ALL THESE PAPERS. I mean, what's in it for me? If I don't fill out the paper, you give me another one. If I DO fill out the paper, you'll still give me another one. There's no end to this stuff. It's hopeless. So why bother?

If the term "Attention Deficit Disorder" had been around in my day, I certainly would have been diagnosed as such. But my problem had nothing to do with my ability to pay attention to things. I was capable on focusing on things for hours if I found them interesting. My problem wasn't my attention span, but my interest level. If you wanted me to do something, you needed to make me care about the work itself. The central aspect of my learning disability was that I was immune to the currency of arbitrary rewards and punishments.

"Just take some out of your Mom's purse," he shrugs. He says this like I'm stupid for not considering such an obvious solution. I know her purse is right beside the couch. Hanging open. You can see the change inside when you pass by. I am seared with guilt the first time I take some money. It bothers me, and even after I've secured some candy and played a videogame, I still have a lingering sense of self-loathing and shame. The deed haunts me for days afterward. But I discover that the conscience is a malleable thing. The second time I swipe money, it's a little easier. Each time, the guilt is less, and the ill-gotten gains can be more easily enjoyed.

He insists that This Won't Do, and asks our mother if he can help us learn them. I am skeptical. This sounds like school, and I do not like school. School is the place with bullies (the teachers) and jerks (the other kids) who disapprove of me and let me know how much they don't appreciate me or my scholastic efforts. It's a constant assault on my sense of worth and my sense of agency. I spend all day watching the clock and waiting to escape, hoping I can make it home without experiencing any major humiliations.

John is a vigorous autodidact. I'm confident that he never attended any education beyond high school, but he has a voracious reading appetite.

Finally I draw a card: "What do you think of a boy who plays with his pennies when he is alone?" Hmm. This is a really goofy question. "I guess he's rich, if he has a lot of pennies," I say with a shrug. "Is that what it says?" she asks calmly. I stare at the card. Not pennies. Penis. I have decided I don't like this woman and I want nothing to do with her. I haven't hit puberty yet. I have no idea what this question could possibly mean, why anyone would do this, why anyone else would ask about it, or why they feel the need to drag me into it. I shrug. My face is burning red. Am I angry? Embarrassed? I don't even know. She’s still sitting quietly, waiting for me to answer this question. She seems to be trying to wait me out, but I have nothing more to say to her. I hate her. In a world of terrifying, apathetic, callous, brutish adults, it turns out that the most unsettling one is my therapist. Worse, I can't explain to Mom why I don't want to come back, because I can't imagine explaining this "game" to my mother. I never want to speak of this again.

This is a full-on open-handed blow to the back of my skull, which nearly bounces my face off the monitor. Once I have returned to my senses, Mrs. Grossman asks coldly, "Didn't I tell you not to touch anything?" A dumb nod is the only response I can muster. Sure, I broke a (pointless) ad-hoc rule borne of fear and ignorance, but I'm pretty sure there are other rules out there, more substantial in nature and most likely written down, about not striking students in the head. But I give no argument.

"Shamus, did I say to type that?" "No," I say flatly. "Go sit over there," she says, pointing to the side of the room with no computers. I'm actually relieved. The lesson was frustrating to the point of madness. I'm sure she is relieved as well: She has managed to get rid of the only person in the room keen on learning to use the computer, and now she can go back to wasting everyone's time without interruption.

This has a large impact on how I perceive my education. The illusion that teachers are vessels of knowledge is shattered, and I can suddenly see teachers for what they were: People who have a job, who sometimes hate that job and who are sometimes manifestly unqualified for that job. Mrs. Grossman has no idea what she's doing and doesn't even understand the subject matter in her hands.

He needs us to forgive him. This is a revelation to me, since I didn't understand until now that he'd done anything that required my forgiveness. I've never connected any of my trials with his actions, or understood how his alcoholism affected me. I just saw him as a guy who was dealt a bad hand and played it poorly.

Dad

He seems to be involved in a number of conflicts with students, and possibly enraged parents. He seems stressed and unhappy. He seems to be up against people who insist that schooling involves learning indisputable facts from books, doing, homework and taking tests. Now the class is more about learning a skill. It's like a woodworking class that has the audacity to grade you on your ability to envision and construct sturdy and useful furniture. You either get it or you don't.

I'm working hard and not making any money. I'm going to school and not learning anything. I'm tired all the time and I'm evidently putting a strain on the rest of my family, who I hardly ever see. How did I screw this up so bad? Are all schools like this, or did I pick a bad one?

tempered. I make friends with Keith and scorn Don. After about nine months, Keith leaves and Don is put in charge of the IT department. I don't last very long after that. I'm let go almost exactly a year after I began. It's a painful lesson, but this was my fault. For the last several months I've been coasting. New work came in, and I let other people have it. I maintained a small number of reports and never sought out new responsibilities. Perhaps I was still infected with the school mentality of doing the minimal work needed to "pass". Don was looking for an excuse to get rid of me, but he never would have been able to do it if I'd been more integral to the operation.

This experience has provided an important lesson: Business dealings have everything to do with the character of the person you're dealing with, and almost nothing to do with what it says on the contract. Rick and I worked together for years without so much as a handshake to seal the deal, because we were both honorable and trusted each other. Over the years I'll learn that contracts can't save you from weasels, liars, cheaters, or morons. The best a contract can do is mitigate your losses when things go wrong.

Despite the misery and disaster of my experience with public education, I'm skeptical when my wife comes to me and proposes homeschooling our three children. After all of those years of frustration and torment, I'm still perfectly willing to send my own children into the madhouse, because... well, that's what everyone does, right?

Schoolwork is not learning in the same way that sitting around in a restaurant is not eating.

I've tutored some homeschooled kids, I've met others, and of course my own kids are homeschooled. Without exception, these kids have been far more socially capable than their public-schooled peers. They don't hold slightly older kids in awe. They don't scorn and sneer at kids who are slightly younger. They're less concerned (or even aware of) matters of class and pecking order. When they relate to adults, they don't suffer from the mumbling, shoulder-shrugging, eye-rolling awkwardness for which teenagers are notorious.

What do you think they should change? Nothing. Oh, I'm sure there are many, many things that could be done to improve schools, and you can hardly hear yourself think over the roar of people shouting for different (and often mutually exclusive) education reforms.

Babies learn to walk between 9 and 18 months. That's a really large window. Most learn at about a year, but a few occupy those fringe positions. Imagine if we sent babies to school to teach them to walk. Imagine the hassle of trying to make kids learn to walk before they were ready, and the hand-wringing over all of the "under-performing" babies. All of that time and effort would be spent to get kids to walk just a couple of months sooner. Just picture how wasteful this would be, since by two years you can't tell the difference between the early walkers and the late walkers. This is public education.