Mostly Anecdotal

Michael in a recent piece at Oblivio refers to the third grade as the most wretched grade of all. My son Chris would agree. I always enjoy going to parent teacher conferences, hearing how nice, how bright, how wonderful my children are. So I was completely unprepared for a trip to visit Chris’s third grade teacher.

My wife and I arrived at the scheduled time. Introduced ourselves and sat down. The teacher seemed a little uncomfortable, which was puzzling, but it wasn’t long before we found out why. She began, Chris’s academic work is okay, but, I have some very serious concerns about him, I’m worried he is headed for some very serious problems. My heart sank; I had no idea what she was talking about, and then, in her most serious tone she said, Chris has the filthiest mouth in the third grade.

I don’t know what she expected us to say. Not every word out of my mouth is four letters; my conversation is only occasionally littered with “bad” words. This usually occurs when discussing politics or religion. Thoughts started running through my mind how should I respond. You’re fucking kidding me was considered and discarded. No shit was also a momentary candidate. It was difficult not to start laughing. Now I don’t believe it is a good idea for a third grader to be swearing a blue streak, but neither do I view it as a moral failing on the order of murder. The look on his teachers face made me think she wasn’t so sure.

A little more discussion made it clear that he was using the language for the reason most children use that sort of language for the shock value. I recall he said that at first he didn’t really understand why people reacted so vehemently to his words, and then when he discovered how seriously they took it well simple rebellion against what he considered absurd was the primary motivation.

We talked to him. It’s the Mormon culture, some of them believe swearing, smoking, and drinking coffee are on par with cheating, stealing and murder. He understood and reduced his output to an occasional damn.

The next meeting with the teacher found her still very concerned, but she did note some improvement. What a difference a couple of years make. The following years Chris had good teachers, teachers who saw his potential, who nurtured him, and shared his love of learning. So it was more than a little satisfaction we felt when at the awards ceremony at the end of the school year he was presented with the “Hope Of America” award. He had progressed from “filthiest mouth in the third grade” to the “Hope of America” in a mere two years. Fucking A. Chris went on to graduate from the University of Utah in Philosophy and is currently working on his PhD at Sheffield University in England where he still sprinkles his language with an occasional four-letter word.

A French student was pleased when his teacher provided an opportunity to earn extra credit. The teacher told him that if he read Orson Scott Card’s Enders Game he would receive 500 funny money francs exchangeable at the end of the quarter for points toward improving his grade. He further stated that Card’s book Speaker for the Dead would earn an additional 500 francs. Being above average in intelligence and after making a quick calculation the student concluded he could make an A with no further work. He would simply use the thousand francs he would earn by reading. So read he did, and let his daily class work slide. Nothing to worry about he thought.

At the end of the quarter he presented the thousand francs to the teacher with a wry smile. The teacher, who by now had realized his mistake, and wasn’t about to let a student get an unearned A. So he took the thousand francs keeping the 500 francs for Enders Game and returning 500 francs, informed the student that he had earned a C- , no discussion.

The student was very angry and appeared at the teachers home that same evening. The teacher arriving at the door and seeing the student with a gun said, “Please, don’t shoot, where did you get the gun?” The student paused, smiled, and said, “What did you expect me to do with my extra 500 francs, and put a bullet in his head. Is the story true, were the bullets real, I can’t say, you see, I’m no Speaker for the Dead.