The Neglected Child
Fri., July 13, 12:08 PM
I just finished Charles Osgood':s Defending Baltimore Against Enemy Attack, his memories of being nine years old during World War II. It was a quick read, only 155 pages of large print. I enjoyed it a great deal, comparing it in some ways to The Crazyladies of Pearl Street, although by Luke's standards — and mine — the Osgoods were wealthy. It is, after all, a matter of perspective as well as a state of mind.
It became quite obvious to me that I was a neglected child. No one ever helped me with my homework when I was nine. (Never mind that we didn't get homework in elementary school!) As my sister will attest, we never had help with our homework.
When the assignment was, say, a poster or a model, the most we might expect was the money to buy the posterboard. Surely we could get information from the encyclopedia, and we had all those old National Geographics in the cellar. I certainly produced some nice posters with what I had, but other kids' parents provided materials and — as anyone could tell — assistance with power tools.
Anyhow, I didn't have homework when I was nine, so it must have been the school system that failed me, right? I didn't have to go home and do my schoolwork over, because I got it right the first time. Teachers were happy that I read books whenever I had time; they even allowed me to spend one whole morning a week — three hours — helping the school librarian. The teachers really did not know what to do with me, while they concentrated on those children who had trouble with their lessons.
There was no such thing as “enrichment” or gifted-and-talented programs. No one was ever “skipped” or even offered an advanced class; grades were structured and you saw the same classmates from first through sixth grade.
So I didn't develop good study habits or a sense of competitiveness. I competed with my siblings, but they were younger. Mostly, I competed with myself, and I still do. Certainly I didn't have the skills to do well in high school, let alone get accepted at acollege.
Well, as many of you know, I did get into college, and I did graduate. Nowadays, I remember my high school Latin teacher (also my dad's teacher), who said her degree was so old she wasn't sure it was good any more. If I calculate correctly, she graduated forty years before she taught us; I graduated forty-three years ago.
Obviously, I took some kind of learning from my parents. My mother had me ready to read when I entered kindergarten. (My daughters, of course, were reading when they entered kindergarten, and they helped their little brother learn to read too.) My dad told me how things worked and remembered history for me; he taught me to use the encyclopedia and to learn whatever I could. It doesn't really matter where you learned it, nothing you ever learn is wasted… Oh, I've said that before, haven't I?
