When I was in preschool, while I was still
having trouble expressing myself with words, I daydreamed constantly. I sat out during our recess and watched the
girls on the swing-set. I didn’t know
how to swing. I didn’t know how to ask
and no one had thought to teach me yet.
Already I was starting to see gender divides. Every day, boys wrestled, and hit each other
with sticks, and put strange things into their mouths until someone with
authority noticed and stopped them. On
the other hand, the girls made immediately for the swings, as though drawn by
some inner-magnetism. They got on the
swings and didn’t stop until someone blew the whistle to end recess. This hidden knowledge frustrated and also
exhilarated me. I would just stare as
the enlightened few went up and down, smiling and giggling in the air, never
realizing their power, and I would imagine them changing in midair to birds and
flying away. This is the first time I can
remember desiring knowledge: till I had seen girls in flight, I’d never
considered how my lack of knowledge kept me bound to the ground. I learned to ask questions, and did,
constantly, about everything.
Around four years
old, I had a favorite game I’d play with my mother. I combined letters and then asked her if they
were words. This could keep me
preoccupied for ages. Most of the time it was pretty easy for her; I hadn’t
quite figured out the important difference between vowels and consonants and
how to connect the two for phonemes, let alone words. I kept her on her guard though: every now and
then I’d memorize the spelling of one word.
We’d start as usual: I’d reel off several strings of letters. Every now and then I’d toss out one of the
words I knew, almost exclusively of the three-letter variety, then I would lull
her into complacency with one barrage of useless letters after another. Finally, I’d say “What about E-S-T-U-A-R-Y…
Is that a word?” smiling to myself, knowing full well the answer (while having
no idea what the word meant). I didn’t
do it too often, and invariably my mother would stop in her tracks and turn to
me. Cunning little plagiarist that I
was, I only cited a source once. When my
mom learned that I had seen it on a book, she smiled, explained the word and
that was the end. . . but when I acted
as though I had stumbled upon it, catching a word flying through the air, she
treated the it as a talisman, and me as a wunderkind. Already I had begun to learn that words and
books held tremendous, secret power, but it was another struggle, much like
learning to speak, to unlock it.
Reading was very
difficult for me. I knew the letters,
but I didn't see them as tools or friends.
They were confusing and contradictory.
The school was using an unofficial version of Hooked on Phonics that focused not on the phonemes, but on the
teachers constantly repeating one phrase, "Sound it out. Just sound it out!" The sounds didn't
make sense to me. There were so many
rules I thought the teachers were making them up. For instance, I couldn't figure out why
"bread" was pronounced "bred" and not "breed"
when "reading" was pronounced "reeding". On top of that, I had a small speech
impediment: I couldn't say "S"s at the beginning of sentences. I used to lie in my bed at night and repeat
"squirrels have tails, girls have curls, squirrels have tails, girls have
curls." I knew, but getting the “s”
on the “quirrel” was very hard.
The school
responded by putting me in the "slow class". That was actually its name. We had to wear huge, avocado-green headsets
and listen as a proper, lightly-accented British woman read words to us while
we looked at them simultaneously on the page.
Most of the time, I did the same thing all of my report cards said: I
spaced out. I daydreamed. I thought
about what it would be like to have wings, or bounce when I fell off the jungle
gym. I worked with my parents on
reading, but it was no fun, and in homeroom I looked at the mass of letters
like an incomprehensible war on the page and said "I can't". If the
teacher tried to prod me further, I started to cry.
This kept up
until 2nd grade when I had Ms. Beck. She
wouldn't take "no" for an answer.
She acknowledged that it was hard, and that sometimes it didn't seem to
make sense, but she told me that I wasn't allowed to say "I can't" or
"I don't know" anymore. She
introduced me to "The Little Engine That Could" and I slowly learned
to “sound out” words and recognize and remember the ones that couldn't be
sounded out. My mantra became "I think I can, I think I can." Sometimes I still couldn't, but there were
fewer tears, and instead of a war, I saw the letters on the page as a mountain
that I was chugging my way up.
I didn’t know it
at the time, but “I think I can, I think I can” was my declaration of
independence. Once I could read, I took
charge of answering my own questions.
All the time I’d previously spent daydreaming in class, I used to
read. I read in English. I read in Math. I read in Science. During school I usually just read ahead in my
class textbooks, but my favorite books were stories with lessons or hidden
meanings that would give me something to worry at as I fell asleep. I devoured folklore. I memorized a book of
Aesop’s Fables. Then D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths. And I retold the stories at
sleepover camp, in front of the fire, and I realized that while ordinarily I
was a shy child, desperate to please authority figures, when I told stories, I
was in charge. The story was mine to
command, with everyone’s attention and even respect hanging on my every
word. I was the magician. I controlled flight and I could free people
from the bonds they couldn’t see.
These experiences
indicate the importance of two articles in The Convention on the Rights of the Child.
First, article 14, which “respect[s] the right of the child to free
thought,” and second, article 28, which
“recognize[s] the right of the child to education.” These truths I took to be self-evident, along
with one other right that served as the central braid connecting education and
freedom in my story; however, The
Convention on the Rights of the Child does not include it:
independence. Development of, and
respect for, my independence as a learner, were the two most important rights
granted to me as a child.
The only time the
word “independence” is even used in The
Convention on the Rights of the Child is to refer to a nebulous and vaguely
nefarious sounding “independent and impartial authority.” The first things a child is taught are rules,
and for most children, the most important rule is that adults are the “authority,"
and swiftly thereafter they learn that adults’ authority, for better or for
worse, is in no way impartial. Children
are told to “do as I say, not as I do.” They
see one set of parents ignore their child’s behavior; meanwhile, they are chastised
by their own parents for crimes they don’t fully understand. Meanwhile, in school, teachers tell students
to push themselves, but punish them with bad grades if they fail to do anything
other than what the teacher feels is right.
Nearly every child will experience the aforementioned types of
authoritarianism and unfortunately, in many cases it will be far worse. Indeed, it is no mistake, but a sad
indictment of prevailing attitudes towards children, that in the US, when a
child wishes to conduct their own business, they must become “emancipated,” as
though previously they were oppressed.
The small injustices children face at the hands of well-meaning
authority figures is nothing compared to the abuse they can be subjected to as
dependents of adults who care nothing for their rights.
One of the early
propositions of the declaration is "that the child should be fully
prepared to live an individual life in society," but a student who only
learns what not to do and is dependent on authorities for all learning has
little chance of living an individual life.
For this and the aforementioned reasons, failing to include a provision among
the 54 articles the UN proposes for “the right of the child to independence” is
either a distressing gap, or a call to children everywhere. The rights that are given to you by
authorities keep you at the mercy of authorities; however, the rights you
declare, by educating yourself and exercising your freedom to express yourself become
a part of you and cannot be taken without a fight.
