Fourth Grade
The place where I come from is a small town
They think so small, they use small words
But not me, I'm smarter than that
I worked it out
I've been stretching my mouth
To let those big words come right out
--- Peter Gabriel 'Big Time'
I sometimes wonder
about my fourth-grade teacher
who told me to stop using big words
because the other children might feel stupid.
Who sent me to sit
at the desk in the hallway
never because I was in trouble,
but because I wasn't, and that made it fair.
Who took me aside
and told me privately that
she wanted to hold me back a year
although I was reading at high-school level.
She said she feared that
I was not mature enough
for the homework assigned in fifth grade.
My parents had to ask me why I kept crying.
Looking back, I thought
that she had been cruel,
by projecting her own neuroses
on a child who happened to pull her triggers;
but now I wonder
if she ever believed that
tearing me down, breaking my heart, and
crushing my spirit would help me in some way.