It was helpful to pretend it was a
democracy, but let’s be honest, kindergarten had always been a dictatorship.
Sing the alphabet, say the pledge of allegiance. Play now. Stop playing now.
Like each other. Share. Classroom settings as a whole were generally
autocratic, but kindergarteners in particular were so defenseless, like sheep
with backpacks, or Indians watching from ancient shores as Europeans showed up
with guns and small poxy blankets and reservations where teenagers could buy
fireworks in October for centuries to come. Sure, there was a token vote now
and then to decide the name of the class pet, but all the real power lay with
the overly cheerful twenty-three-year-old at the front of the room. It was
helpful to pretend it was a democracy, but it never had been. Until one day,
when one pigtailed, skort-wearing five-year-old decided to change everything.
In the years to follow, school
psychologists and biopic filmmakers would blame the incident on her parents’
rapidly deteriorating marriage or early onset clinical depression, but no one
really knew why Katie R. (there was another Katie in the class, Katie P.) did
what she did. Maybe it was the weather, maybe she was a five-year-old with a
future in government overthrows. She never said. There’s just no way of
knowing.
What we do know is that it was a
Tuesday in the fall when her epiphany came. She had been sitting at her desk,
annoyed that the teacher had ended craft time well before half the class had a
chance to finish stringing Fruit Loops onto yarn and brooding over the balance
of power in the room. She looked at the teacher, calmly announcing story time.
She looked at the students, wide-eyed in their desks. She looked back to the
teacher. Even though, at five foot four, she towered over her subjects, there
was only one of her. There were twenty-six of them. Katie R. wouldn’t learn
multiplication for two more years, but in that moment, she knew that twenty-six
three-and-a-half-foot-tall kindergarteners were a lot more than one five foot
four teacher. From there, it didn’t take long to spread the word around the
playground, during games of tag and in whispered moments behind the swings.
Rise up, alphabet singers and paste eaters; you have nothing to lose but your
chains.
The
next day, everything went exactly according to plan—at least at first. Calendar
time. Alphabet time. Show and tell. Then recess. When their teacher rang her
bell and announced that it was time to come inside, Katie R. shouted NO from
the top of the slide. The alphabet singers and paste eaters were meant to
follow suit and keep playing interminably, but their nerves slowed their
convictions, and Katie R. was left alone on the playground. How could this
happen? What was wrong with these people?
The
teacher marched Katie R. past the crayon table and alphabet wall and into the
hallway. She pointed and commanded that she stay there and not move until
someone came to take her to the principal’s office. It was humiliating. It was
painful. Disappointed and disheartened, Katie R. couldn’t bring herself to
fight back.
But
then, just as her last ray of hope was about to disappear, she heard it. A NO shouted
from the inside of the room. Then another, and another. NO. NO. NO! Something
being thrown, a cabinet door slamming. Screaming. As the hall monitor dragged
her down the corridor by the arm, she strained to hear the sounds of
unstoppable rebellion, and smiled, but it was bittersweet satisfaction. She had
waited her whole life for this, and now she was missing it.
No comments:
Post a Comment