When Left is Right

When Left is Right

“Yes, this man was fighting, fighting with words. He was using words as a weapon, using them as one would use a club” (Wright.  96).

It may not occur to us that a place of education may also be a place of violence. That is to say the place where we learn reading, writing and arithmetic is also the place where we learn to protect ourselves from others. Be it our classmates, teachers, or the PTA. When we cram people into one building of learning we should also expect to see violence, slander, degradation and bullying.

Inevitably we all learn to protect ourselves, and discover who we are when backed into a corner. Not all of us learn to fight back with fists, some learn to defend themselves through words, social manipulations or in my case nonviolent protest.

I was five years old when I entered into Kindergarten and until this point I had always looked at school and learning in general as the joyous of joys. The time to break up the monotony of being an only child mostly forgotten until it was convenient for the adults to show me off to friends and relatives alike. Learning and school for me was a chance to speak, to express myself and earn praise for being smart instead of just my mother’s Kewpie doll of a child with blonde ringlets and patent leather Mary Jane’s and I was fond of drawing above all things.

I was born with a very strange talent however, which at the time was nothing special to me, and was never an issue for anyone else. I am ambidextrous and I had learned to read, write, and yes even draw, backward and upside down, what is sometimes also called Mirror writing. When I would draw I would outline my figure with one crayon and color in the space with my other with no more effort than it would take for someone to catch a baseball and throw it back.  By the time I had entered into head start at the age of four, with my mother and Grandmothers attentiveness I could read, write in both cursive and script, draw complex shapes, and add and subtract. These things were easy for me and I longed for a greater challenge which, I was told, school would provide.

However, this was only 1986 and Vermont. Many of you probably don’t remember Vermont at this time, but we were still very much cut off, the influx of tourism had really only just started and most of the state was still small little communities caught in the vast national forests. My home town is a quiet little town nestled between three mountains on the edge of a plateau, where people still “come down off the mountain” once a month to buy “commodities” so the school system I entered into was quite small, I had 9 kids in my kindergarten class and we had to walk from our classroom in the basement of the old town hall a few blocks down the road to the currently being constructed elementary school to take our weekly art and music classes.

I was always so happy to go to art and music that the teacher had to hold my hand to keep me from skipping off ahead without the rest of the children, whom followed her like grumpy little ducklings separated from their Barbie’s and Tonka trucks. To me there was no grander place in the world to be than those two classrooms.

This all changed for me one sunny autumn day in art class. My outlook on school, teachers, people and even myself would never be the same.

We had a substitute teacher. She was old and looked like Granny from the Tweety and Sylvester cartoons. Everything from the small glasses resting on her nose to the strange leather lace up shoes which clunked like horse hooves on the newly laid tile floors wherever she went. At first the children were boisterous, loud and excited for class. They wanted to get their small pudgy hands on finger paints, markers and crayons. However, with two very loud and authoritative whacks of her ruler against the chalkboard our new teacher made it known that children should be seen and not heard.

As one of the old guard she had been a teacher for most of her lifetime and had probably started out in one of those one room schoolhouses. After a lifetime of teaching she was quickly reaching retirement and now had to teach finger painting to little ones while the new Principal tried to find permanent replacement to flesh out his staff.

I am one of the few people my age you will meet who has been hit by a teacher. Not just hit but beaten in front of the class until my little cabbage patch knuckles were bloody. I can make sense of that now but as a child it took me many years to understand why she had done what she did to me.

I was drawing at the coloring table (just as I was instructed) with three other children. It was one of those harmless assignments handed out to small children to pass the time. Like making hand turkeys, and coloring them in. I was happily dipping my hands into the bucket scrounging for just the right shade of orange I needed for the toms feathers; outlining with my left hand and shading with my right. It was then that “Granny” noticed me.

She came clomping over to our table and watched us working. I didn’t notice as I was absorbed in my work just as I always am when drawing. The loud and sudden CRACK of her ruler coming down on the table beside of me made me (and the crayons) jump. Startled I looked up at her. With sharp authority she told me to use one crayon at a time. Thinking I must have been bad at sharing I put down the crayon in my right hand. She shook her head disapprovingly in disgust. With casual malice she told me that I had to use my right hand as the left hand was only for evil people… and evil people were punished.

I guess it was then that my own little Kristie personality kicked in. I knew what she said was wrong as no one had ever told me that using my left hand was evil or that I was a bad person for doing so. Neither my mother nor any of my other teachers had ever told me I could not use my left hand. The very notion seemed absurd so I just assumed she was joking and went back to drawing with my left hand.

“Granny” came back to my table a few minutes later and noticed that I was still switching off crayons to my left hand (as I was still trying to be a good girl and not hog two crayons at once). This time she told me to stand up and walk with her to the head of the class. She asked me to put my left hand out and she gave my hand a little tap with her ruler and then pointed it at my other hand and said “Left is bad, right is good” and went on to lecture me (and the class) about what a bad mother I had for letting her child use the “Devils hand” and asked if my mother also wrote left handed. I told her no. That my mother was right handed as was my father. Switch in hand and disgust in her voice she ordered me to sit back down.

I returned to my table and “Granny” set out to stalk around the now uneasy and frightened classroom of kindergarteners. They were all a little wide eyed and nervous as they tried to not look at me. They had made it well known that I was a freak, a troublemaker and completely alone. I watched the sullen looks and nervous sideways glances as this “teacher” took her trip around the room.

I grew angry… and defiant.

I had made up my mind. I placed my right hand palm down on the table away from me and knuckled down to use my left hand primarily. I knew she wouldn’t like it. I knew I would get in trouble. However, if she didn’t pick on me then she was going to go after one of them and I would not have that. They cowered from her as she drew near. Children were afraid to reach for other colors until she moved away. Conversations stopped. Laughter died.

Fear had been brought into the classroom.

I colored and kicked my feet under my chair. Humming and waiting. “Granny” made her trip around the classroom and came back to see what the noise was about. I was happily coloring in some feathered fingers with my left hand.

“She came unhinged. She thought I was acting smart and told me so. I kept calm, and that got her madder and madder.” (Raymond. 101).

It was then that she snapped. Not only was I using only my left hand but I seemed happy about it! Just as Raymond expressed when he discussed his substitute.

When she struck me it was not a little tap on the back of the hand; it was hard enough to leave a red mark and a welt. The pain was immediate and I looked up to her in shocked horror. My defiance had pushed her to expose her ignorance, prejudice and hateful temper that simmered just below that sweet and wholesome Granny facade.

I only remember sounds and images after that point. She kept hitting my left hand and I kept drawing. Eventually the tears that had first stung my eyes stopped and the other kids started crying for me. They yelled at her to stop hitting and begged me to stop drawing. They wanted me to give in and tap out.

The crayon broke inside my red and raw little fist. I could no longer keep the crayon moving from the unending blows yet I held on tight and refused to cry out in pain. Ignoring her vile words as I drifted off to happier thoughts to try and make the pain go away.

Fortunately the class had raised enough ruckus to draw the music teacher from the room next door. The next thing I knew the music teacher was there with the Principal in toe. “Granny” was asked to step out of the room and we never saw her again. I was sent to the Nurses office and my parents were notified and took me home.

The art teacher went into “retirement” so I guess everyone else was apparently happy with the outcome.

I was not happy.

At first I was upset and questioned whether or not what I did was wrong in defying a teacher like that. I even felt guilty about her losing her job because of me. I knew doubt for the first time in my young and developing mind. However, I eventually grew firm in my resolve.

My gut instinct which made me keep that crayon in my hand (even when the blows from her ruler broke it inside my small fist and the sharp edge broke my skin) I knew I might not have been right in being stubborn; but she was wrong in hitting me and saying all those awful things. In ostracizing me from my classmates and most importantly she was wrong in holding to such outdated and superstitious beliefs.

What I took from this event was not the lesson she meant to teach. I no longer write with my right hand. I made a choice that day and I am now a lefty. I can still use my right hand for many things but I am left dominant by choice. More importantly I learned that others are more apt to keep their head down so long as it keeps eyes off of them and their deeds. That even grown adults and those in places of authority can be monsters or just humans with prejudices and willing to act on them. Even against the small, weak and defenseless.

What I discovered about myself that day, in that defining moment of character was that I was the kind of person whom would happily march into hell with a song in my heart and a smile on my lips if it were for the right reasons.

“And I chanted It’s a good day to die it’s a good day to die, all the way down to the principal's office.” (Alexie. 166).

I am defiant and proud to be so. Sometimes you will come upon a person or belief so narrow minded, backwards and just plain mean that others might be too afraid to stand up. Sometimes someone has to be the whipping boy. Sometimes right is wrong and left is right.