WELL, IT WASN'T HARVARD

My older brother by two years took me to school and enrolled me in Kindergarten. One day many weeks later, somebody said about me, "The new boy..." The teacher told him that didn't he think it was time to start using my name, since I was no longer the "new boy?"

Sitting in class one day, a boy raised his hand and asked if he could go to the bathroom. The teacher told him no. No using the bathroom. I finally had to go so bad, I just peed my pants. I remember a little girl turning around and looking at me, but nobody ever said anything about it.

I'm in the second or third grade, late in the year. I'm sitting on the floor, reading an arithmetic book -- something I do often. I want to learn to do arithmetic, but so far we haven't been taught any. I read the stories in the book and marvel at the numbers and signs, but that's as far as I get. I hear two teachers standing right next to me. One of them says to the other, "When they want to learn arithmetic, they'll ask. I fervently wished someone would ask so we could get on with it. At no time did it occur to me for ME to ask.

Years later, in High School, I learn about an education system "in the old days" where one of the dogmas was that when children were ready for a subject, they would ask to learn it. It was supposed to be a very modern thing to do, back then. It was called, "Progressive Education."

It didn't occur to me that I had been taught in one of those schools. It was not until years later when the incident came to my mind and I realized, as a grownup, that those two women teachers had purposely situated themselves near me and said what they said as hint for me to ask, "Please, Sir - may I have some more education?" They had obviously seen me reading that arithmetic book every day for months. Must have been very frustrating for them.

By the time I was in forth grade, I had memorized my times tables and could do some simple multiplication. Then I was transferred from Brooks Progressive School to Phillips Elementary School because my parents moved and they wanted us kids to move with them and since I was one of the kids, I went.

The very first day in my new school, we had a math test. The test was on division. It looked like Greek to me. I had no idea what was going on. I guessed at every question. I never noticed any unusual treatment that teacher gave me, but she must have wondered where I had been schooled. I imagine though, that Brooks Progressive already had a reputation amongst teachers, so she probably already knew how to get me on track.

When I was in the seventh grade I went to a one room school in Northern Iowa. The first day there the teacher, in order to gage our abilities, asked my older brother and I some questions. One I remember was, "What is the smallest part of the body?"

We hemmed and hawed for a while and I guessed, "The finger?" My brother guessed something similar, but I don't remember what that was. So much for education in the big city.

I learned to do phonics by listening in on her teaching the first graders. One time only, she asked me to correct their phonics papers. At the time, I thought she just needed my help, but now I see that she was surreptitiously testing me. She had no doubt noticed my intense interest in her first grade class whenever they were on phonics.