The Past: Remembered
It's strange how suddenly the past can intrude on the present...the other day, I was sitting with my wife, and she asked me if I thought of myself as "smart." I wasn't quite sure how to respond to her, because, frankly, I very rarely think of those kinds of things. The first thing that popped into my mind was the following incident from my childhood....
I was a pretty normal kid, with a pretty bland self image. I didn't think of myself as smart or dumb, I was just me...upon entering 6th grade, and having, for the first time, different teachers for different subjects, I was struck by the ebb and flow of my day. I had a great history teacher, Mr. Dymond, who made me want to be a history teacher myself. I also had a pretty cool math teacher, unfortunately I can't recall his name, who introduced me to high stakes testing. At the end of every quarter (do schools still break their year into quarters?) he would give a 10 question quiz. He would grade these quizzes on a curve...meaning that the student with the highest score always got 100% - even if he got 8 of 10 questions right...he would then curve everyone's grade by adding the different (2 questions in this example) to everyone elses score...thus if someone got 7 questions right, he/she would be graded as if they had gotten 9 out of 10 or 90% right. Anyway, the real reason that these tests were exciting to me was because this was the first time that we were treated like adults rather than kids...specifically, our teacher told us that we could bring snack and drinks to the test - we'd never been able to do anything like that before. I suspect that this was his way of making us look forward to the tests rather than dread their approach, and atleast in my case, it worked...I looked forward to the end of each quarter so that I could bring my snacks to class.
At the end of the first quarter, I received the 100% on the quiz, and I really screwed up the curve by getting all of the questions right (in effect, no one else's grade got raised...if you got 8 questions right, you were stuck with 8 questions). I considered myself pretty lucky, as you'll recall, I had a bland self image. As the end of the second quarter approached, I again spent more time planning which snacks I would bring to class than studying for the test, but I again ended up with a perfect score (again blowing the curve).
As the end of the third quarter approached, the students in the class started colluding to have everyone pick the easiest question and only answer that one...in effect giving everyone the 100% (as long as everyone got that one question correct and no one else answered any more than 1 question). I immediately realized that this wasn't going to work because there was no way that all 20 of us in the class were gonna keep to that kind of a pact. Luckily, I didn't have to be "the guy" who doesn't agree to the plan, as several other classmembers refused to sign on, thus ending the great 6th grade collusion experiment of 1984 (which is too bad, as I think it would be a pretty interesting story to be able to tell). Again, I scored the perfect score and blew the curve...my classmates were starting to dislike me...many taking to calling me "goody goody," a nickname that I actually was dumb enough to think was something of which to be proud.
As the fourth quarter came to an end, my classmates started to plot against me. They didn't know if I'd be able to do it again, but they at least wanted to make certain that someone else would at least tie me if I did, so they chose a likely candidate...a smart girl with red hair (sorry, I have forgotten her name as well), and they began quizzing her. They made it their job to make certain that she at least shared the perfect score. Once again, I got it (she ended up with an 8 out of 10, I think). Again, I had blown the curve, and for the entirety of the 7th and 8th grades, I was called "goody goody" - still not smart enough to know that this wasn't a compliment.
So, as I told my wife this story, about me being the first student in any of this teachers math classes that had not only gotten the 100% every quarter but also didn't miss one question out of 40, she chose to focus on the fact that I thought "goody goody" was a compliment...that's me...the dumbest smart guy you'll ever know...
It's strange how suddenly the past can intrude on the present...the other day, I was sitting with my wife, and she asked me if I thought of myself as "smart." I wasn't quite sure how to respond to her, because, frankly, I very rarely think of those kinds of things. The first thing that popped into my mind was the following incident from my childhood....
I was a pretty normal kid, with a pretty bland self image. I didn't think of myself as smart or dumb, I was just me...upon entering 6th grade, and having, for the first time, different teachers for different subjects, I was struck by the ebb and flow of my day. I had a great history teacher, Mr. Dymond, who made me want to be a history teacher myself. I also had a pretty cool math teacher, unfortunately I can't recall his name, who introduced me to high stakes testing. At the end of every quarter (do schools still break their year into quarters?) he would give a 10 question quiz. He would grade these quizzes on a curve...meaning that the student with the highest score always got 100% - even if he got 8 of 10 questions right...he would then curve everyone's grade by adding the different (2 questions in this example) to everyone elses score...thus if someone got 7 questions right, he/she would be graded as if they had gotten 9 out of 10 or 90% right. Anyway, the real reason that these tests were exciting to me was because this was the first time that we were treated like adults rather than kids...specifically, our teacher told us that we could bring snack and drinks to the test - we'd never been able to do anything like that before. I suspect that this was his way of making us look forward to the tests rather than dread their approach, and atleast in my case, it worked...I looked forward to the end of each quarter so that I could bring my snacks to class.
At the end of the first quarter, I received the 100% on the quiz, and I really screwed up the curve by getting all of the questions right (in effect, no one else's grade got raised...if you got 8 questions right, you were stuck with 8 questions). I considered myself pretty lucky, as you'll recall, I had a bland self image. As the end of the second quarter approached, I again spent more time planning which snacks I would bring to class than studying for the test, but I again ended up with a perfect score (again blowing the curve).
As the end of the third quarter approached, the students in the class started colluding to have everyone pick the easiest question and only answer that one...in effect giving everyone the 100% (as long as everyone got that one question correct and no one else answered any more than 1 question). I immediately realized that this wasn't going to work because there was no way that all 20 of us in the class were gonna keep to that kind of a pact. Luckily, I didn't have to be "the guy" who doesn't agree to the plan, as several other classmembers refused to sign on, thus ending the great 6th grade collusion experiment of 1984 (which is too bad, as I think it would be a pretty interesting story to be able to tell). Again, I scored the perfect score and blew the curve...my classmates were starting to dislike me...many taking to calling me "goody goody," a nickname that I actually was dumb enough to think was something of which to be proud.
As the fourth quarter came to an end, my classmates started to plot against me. They didn't know if I'd be able to do it again, but they at least wanted to make certain that someone else would at least tie me if I did, so they chose a likely candidate...a smart girl with red hair (sorry, I have forgotten her name as well), and they began quizzing her. They made it their job to make certain that she at least shared the perfect score. Once again, I got it (she ended up with an 8 out of 10, I think). Again, I had blown the curve, and for the entirety of the 7th and 8th grades, I was called "goody goody" - still not smart enough to know that this wasn't a compliment.
So, as I told my wife this story, about me being the first student in any of this teachers math classes that had not only gotten the 100% every quarter but also didn't miss one question out of 40, she chose to focus on the fact that I thought "goody goody" was a compliment...that's me...the dumbest smart guy you'll ever know...