Let's say this is an arts-related post so I can put it here today. It's kind of about literature anyway, which is an art. This is a tangent I went off on this afternoon during my son's nap after being reminded about my early days as a reader.
Peaking in 4th Grade
My daughter will be going to kindergarten this fall. She can sound out short and medium-ish words, which is actually quite impressive for her age I'm told, and we continue to work on it every other day or so, when she feels like it.
Even though she loves being read to, and we read upwards of three books a day, I asked my husband yesterday if he thought our daughter was enthusiastic enough about reading on her own. I expressed concern that she sometimes seems a little disenchanted with the whole thing and would rather go sing and dance instead.
He kind of laughed and asked, "Were you reading that well when you were five? Were you enchanted by it?"
Well...why, yes. Yes I did and yes I was.
I don't much remember my kindergarten years, so I don't know how it happened, really; but I was reading big books by the first grade. By big I mean Amelia Bedelia type stuff. And by the time I was in the fourth grade I was reading at a college level. My teachers thought I was magical like Matilda (you know, the Roald Dahl character - a book I read in the second grade). I was so witty and smart that I got away with everything. Teachers gave up on teaching me because there was no point. During the English and Reading lessons I was sometimes allowed to just sit quietly and read in the back of the room, or work on "activity pages."
I'd be a disruption otherwise. If I was forced to endure the lessons on things I already somehow inherently knew, I'd start trying to do the teachers' jobs for them. Or I'd start de-accessorizing and re-accessorizing (taking off my belt, wrapping it around my ankles or wrists instead; braiding my hair, unbraiding it; taking off my shoes and putting them back on without socks); I'd start fidgeting and asking if I could go to the bathroom, or the water fountain, or the bathroom again; and then I'd never come back - the principal's assistant was always being sent to look for me. But if they didn't let me go in the first place I'd start saying stuff about being a prisoner.
Nowadays, I probably would've been given medicine to shut me the fuck up, but that's not what was wrong with me. Nothing was wrong with me.
I was so obnoxious. But they fed into it. They all did. Everyone except my family. Well, my mom fed into it, for sure. But no one else. If I'd say anything "smart" they'd roll their eyes or start a fight. They didn't understand me, I thought. Now I know, though: no, I was just annoying. I didn't know how to intelligently express myself back then, was all. I was a ten-year-old with what I thought to be superhuman mental abilities.
By now, at the age of 32, you'd think I'd be reading and comprehending at a heavenly level, or something. Or at the level of a 94-year-old? But that's not how things work. And let me point out here that my mathematics skills on the other hand are probably still that of a second grader's, and my IT skills are no better than my son's, and he's one and a half. Also, ask me anything about science and I won't know it. Same goes for history. I didn't retain any of that information. So what did I even learn from those advanced books I was reading? Just stuff about human nature, and where to put a comma. And now I've grown up to think humans aren't born innocent and don't really give a fuck, and that I can put or not put a comma wherever the fuck I want. Because I'm human.
If there's a way to progress past reading at a college level, I probably never passed it. Because I stopped believing in god and goodness and life at a very young age because my advanced reading level equipped me to think this way. Okay, so did other things that have happened in my life, but still, I would have just gone about my childish ways and taken those things at face value if I weren't able to philosophize and rationalize even beyond the point of disbelief. But I stopped reading for leisure sometime around the eleventh grade, when I found out my mom was going to die, and didn't pick up another piece of literature until I was, like, twenty-four. So my progression was stunted.
But everything just evens out. The universe does that to put you back in your place. Because we're not really supposed to be here. We were just a germ-y accident. The universe does not view us as an asset or miracle. The stars are the real inhabitants of the world. We've gotta admit they're much more dynamic than us. We're nuisances. Especially now with all this technology bullshit. We're putting art pieces on different planets (seriously, I read it somewhere and, as a stupid puny human, I think that's really fun and innovative of us, and I bet I would have thought of it first had I not taken a "fuck reading" sabbatical) like we're doing the universe a favor. Fuck us.
So I peaked in fourth grade because I was a threat to the universe. And now I'm faced with the difficult decision of: do I just let my daughter go about her merry way, or do I push her to excel at everything and chase her dreams, knowing from experience that the world will just continuously work at shutting her up and shutting her down? Do I encourage her to reach a heavenly reading level? Or do I let her read at whatever level the universe is planning for her to read at? The universe will inevitably win either way, but I think I'll go ahead and encourage her to wreak as much havoc on this universe, with her brain, as she possibly can until she physically can't keep doing it anymore.
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