acted this way while a parent was watching, I wondered what went on with no parent present.
Anything Mrs. Merkin taught, she taught by rote. There was no spark, no enthusiasm in her. She read the most mundane, simplistic stories to the kids in a monotonous, singsong voice. I read to Gray every night: The Odyssey, Watership Down, The Hobbit. He already knew most of his letters and could recognize many words. She was boring, the class was boring, and I didn’t blame Gray for acting out. Not only that, but she was inflexibly authoritarian, and I could see why Gray might buck against her rigid rules. Students had to sit utterly still almost every moment they were in the classroom, and then they had to lie still for forty-five minutes of “quiet time,” during which they couldn’t even look at picture books. Students were not allowed to talk during lunch either. I found this last an unbelievably harsh rule, but she defended it by saying that if they allowed the students to talk, they wouldn’t finish their meals on time. And who knows what unholy chaos would break out if they didn’t finish their meals on time?
If, as some contemporary researchers have suggested, ADD-diagnosed kids are addicted to sensory stimulation, being unable to engage with each other during lunchtime and then being forced to lie down for forty-five minutes with no stimulation must be torturous. Even if one doesn’t buy the theory that they are addicted to sensory stimulation, it’s unreasonable to expect that five-year-olds might willingly sit still during the whole of class with one recess break of fifteen minutes, have lunch where they can’t socialize, and be forced to lie still or take a forced nap for another forty-five minutes. It occurred to me after just one day in Gray’s class that not only does the traditional public-school structure privilege docile, obedient personalities, but for some children it constitutes a very real form of torture, all the worse because it’s sanctioned by those who most care about the children.
Later that evening, I asked Gray what he thought of Mrs. Merkin.
“She’s stupid!”
I didn’t say anything, although I actually agreed with him.
“She doesn’t even know how to pronounce some things. And she keeps calling me Greg.”
After a week of sitting in Mrs. Merkin’s class, I demanded that Gray be switched to another teacher. The principal said they didn’t usually switch teachers, but I was adamant, and eventually he gave in. Gray was put into a more seasoned teacher’s class, Mrs. Snyder’s class. I sat in the first day of class with her, too, and could see she was a bit more effective than Mrs. Merkin. She didn’t constantly send kids to the principal’s office but rather tried to handle infractions herself.
Things were okay for a little while, then Gray started to get in trouble again – notes were being sent home about him being fidgety and not paying attention. I began speaking with Mrs. Snyder several times a week, but nothing either of us did helped. Soon I got another call from the principal to meet with him.
The night before we were to meet, I read Gray another chapter of The Hobbit and snuggled in bed next to him. He was holding one of the stuffed animals he’d had since birth, the one we called “heart bear” because a red heart was stitched to its chest. I stroked his hair.
“How are you liking school these days?” I asked.
He looked at me with his startling gray eyes, which began to fill with tears. Then he looked at his bear, and when he spoke, it seemed as if he were speaking to the bear, not me.
“I wish there was a world where principals didn’t beat children,” he said.
It turned out that during many of those visits to the principal’s office, the principal had been beating Gray with a paddle he kept in his desk drawer. I learned, to my surprise, that corporal punishment was legal in Texas. School officials did not need the approval of the parent to hit a child, nor did they have to inform the parents. Furious, frustrated, and emotionally bereft, I reminded myself we were in the middle of the Bible Belt, where many believed that to spare the rod was to spoil the child, but that didn’t help much. The week before, the Dallas Morning News had published an article about the use of corporal punishment in schools. The principal of a Texas Christian elementary school had been quoted as saying, “We should be passing bills to encourage corporal punishment.”
The next morning, I marched into the principal’s office determined to let him have it. He motioned me to sit down and pulled the paddle out of his drawer. Years later, Gray would say to me, “Do you remember that principal who beat me? Did you know his paddle had pictures of the Smurfs on it? Isn’t that sick?”
In that moment, I didn’t notice the images on the paddle. As the principal stroked it, I only registered that it was painted bright enamel blue and peppered with brightly colored stickers.
“You have to understand, Mrs. Gideon, that if you refuse to have Gray tested for ADD, we have to take other measures.” He paused. “You know, one problem with Gray is that he’s not afraid.”
“What do you mean he’s not afraid?”
“He’s not afraid. He comes in here, knowing he’s going to be paddled, and he stands there, defiant, and refuses to apologize or promise that he won’t misbehave.” The principal tapped the paddle against the palm of his hand, thinking.
“He’s only five years old!”
“Why do you think he’s not afraid, Mrs. Gideon?”
“St. Germain, Sheryl St. Germain, I don’t have Gray’s dad’s last name. Please don’t call me that again. And I guess he’s not afraid because he’s never had to be afraid.”
“Don’t you discipline him at home?”
“He has to do quiet time when he does something wrong.”
“Does that work?”
“Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.”
“What about your husband?”
“What about my husband?” I felt like he was speaking a foreign language.
“Does he discipline your son?”
“We both do quiet time. We try to be consistent.” Instead of building up to tell the principal off, I was weakening. I could feel myself becoming emotional, and I knew that if I didn’t get out of there soon, I was going to cry. I couldn’t bear the thought of this man hitting my son, however sanctioned it might be.
“Well,” he said, “once you get him on Ritalin, I’m sure he’ll be in here less often. It really does help, you know. The teachers like it. It helps them do their job and keep order in the classroom. And Gray will find that he’s better able to make friends too. Right now, I don’t think too many of his classmates want to hang around him because he’s always getting in trouble.”
“But this is just kindergarten!” I said. I was beginning to feel like I was in a Kafka novel. Nothing made sense. “I thought kids just colored and hung out and got used to each other in kindergarten. Since when did it become like the army?”
I felt like I was suffocating. I left the principal’s office and drove around and around the neighborhood, looking at the homes of the parents and children who went to Gray’s school. I had never noticed how neatly clipped and submissive their hedges looked, how their trees were pruned until they looked like spiritless soldiers. I wondered if the children playing in the yards were well-beaten children. I had
