Humiliating Cathy
By ice rivers
- 2236 reads
During my Parsells Avenue days, my playmates regarded me as the smartest kid on the block which I knew was far from true. That erroneous regard was based upon reading and spelling skills. I had only one challenger and that was my next door neighbor Cathy. In second grade, my classmates would always request that I did the reading in the class. They preferred my reading even to the teacher 's because I read with so much "expression". I got used to being the main reader in our class until one day Sister Agnita called on Cathy to read. Cathy stepped up and read with expression, pronunciation and accuracy. I enjoyed her reading as well. Over the next few weeks Cathy and I were equally called upon to read. We were the bluebirds.
Then one day, Sister Agnita brought a children's magazine to school. Up to that point, our reading had all been done from the infamous Dick and Jame reading primers and we read them in the order that they were presented in the book. Sister called on Cathy to read new material from the children's book.
Cathy was silent as if she didn't hear the teacher's request.
The teacher repeated her invitation. Cathy repeated her silence but added a discernible blush. Sister repeated her request. Cathy repeated her silence but this time added tears. The teacher called on me. I read the story no problem.
Cathy was never called on again and eventually left the bluebird nest. One day in her backyard, she explained her silence to me. Cathy couldn't read. Her mother, competitive with my mother, had heard about my reading success and became determined that Cathy would shut me down. Cathy was forced to memorize the reading assignments that we had each night for homework.
Cathy's reading was rote memory and recitation.
I couldn't imagine how difficult it must have been for Cathy to memorize all that stuff every night and be ready to recite and lie the next day in such a way as to reveal that she couldn't read a lick.
I liked Cathy. She was a friend of mine and a playmate. I hated to see her get humiliated and lose all of her self-confidence. Cathy's was the first humiliation that I remember seeing in school. I would see many others as a school boy and hear of many others when I became a teacher. I hated them. I felt sorry for the humiliatee. Moments like this were the beginnings of my teacher education. I learned the basic must to avoids in teaching. Humiliating a student being close to the top of the list. I vowed to become a teacher and NEVER humiliate a student. This came in handy when I ran into Laird, my first dyslexic student. As soon as I realized his discomfort, I made a point of talking to him. He explained the problem to me tearfully and I tearfully began to understand. Laird taught me for the rest of the year and forever.
Cathy moved from Parsells Avenue a few years after the incident. Maybe she became an actress. She would have been good at that if she had the confidence. I never saw or heard from her again.
My reputation as a "smart" kid in the neighborhood hood grew at Cathy's expense,
I knew better.
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Congratulations! This is our
Congratulations! This is our Facebook/Twitter pick for today, please like and share if you enjoyed it too.
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I'm so glad this was picked.
I'm so glad this was picked. What an inspiring and wonderful read, better for being so well told.
I also found my way into (kind of) teaching. I'd seen and experienced a humiliation or two, and just fallen foul of bad learning environments. I love the way you get the point over here. Exactly that. I cared about my students and about their learning, just as set out in your piece here.
I'm so glad I read this tonight ice rivers.
Thanks for writing and posting it.
Parson Thru
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yeh, what stirkes me is Cathy
yeh, what stirkes me is Cathy's ability and inabitlity, but more than that her mum's small mindedness.
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So many Cathys. Thank you for
So many Cathys. Thank you for seeing them.
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dyslexia
Excellent story Jerry very entertaining very sensitive. My young brother also recited his reading lessons in class from memory they only realised in grade three he couldn't read a word he just pretended.
But in his case he didn't ever learn the lessons he just remembered them verbatim from the previous day. He actually believed this was how it was done.
He since has long ago overcome the dyslexia completely, with the help of occupational therapists and a passion for reading stories and poetry. In fact he passed first and second year both English and Afrikaans at correspondence univerity but then he got into an argument with mail with a bigshot professor head of school or something.
Now he is a writer himself! All the best, again, good work good story!
Nolan &&
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Having helped out in primary
Having helped out in primary school, realised it's not just English language classes that are a problem. Being assigned to help someone through a day, with their reading, it was discovered that she was not bad at Maths at all, only could not understand the written questions!!! Her smile when she was one of only two in the class to have got everything right! But there was not enough money for someone to do that. It must be like having to be with people speaking a foreign language all the time and expecting you to know it too
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Sarcastic maths teachers are everywhere
Sarcastic maths teachers are everywhere.
One donkey and one donkey is two donkeys, does the donkey understand? Yes sir, the donkey understands. And there my father's mathematics career ended. Enrolled at the technical college my brother's teacher didn't like any creativity at all and my brother scored in his term test 1% One percent.
It is my experience that some teachers apparently enjoy humiliating helpless kids with their clever sarcasm. Sometimes they do a lot of damage.
Confidence is everything. A few kind words of encouragement can make all the difference.
Tom Brown
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