I grew up in the U.S. school system which pretty much treated us like laboratory rats. We were measured, weighed, tested, assessed and compared from the time I was in kindergarten on.
My report cards kept reflecting that I was “unlike” other students. This presentation of anomaly was particularly problematic in the pool of acceptability.
I was slow to learn to read. Having to stay in at recess and after school until I caught up with the other third graders was humiliating. With hindsight I see what a dedicated, kind and disciplined teacher I had the luck to experience.
By grade eight I was reading at first year university level. We were streamed in grade nine after an appropriately named “battery” of tests. Separated from all of the lower cohorts, I was grouped with only those whose goal was university. In fact, over 80% of those I attended middle school and high school with went on to get a graduate degree as did I.
In grade 12 I knew exactly what position I held in the 368 students who graduated that year. We had access to the information at any time. I fought tooth and nail for position 35 and had aspirations for position 30. My 25 percentile ability in math held me back. Basically, I was informed in curtained language that I was a math idiot.
In grade 11 I and my other “geekdom” dwellers who had scored in the top 95% of all high school students in the United States for academic ability were gathered to sit in chairs in a row on the gym floor. Over 1,000 students were ushered in to look down on us. The honor was usually for the jocks. Once a month the entire school for forcefully herded down to cheer at them. Now it was our turn. There was NO enthusiasm on either side. We felt marked out like trapped animals and they felt hostile at worse and totally bored with our presence at best.
What has the experience left me with? A competitive nature even with myself.
Probably, this is one of the reasons even though I received three academic degrees by the time I was 22 years of age, that I love multi-media art. I work alone. I work without an audience. I work without words. My work is strange, unique and incomparable. What a blessing.