I’m continuing to uncover painful events in my life. I know that this process will be exhausting, wounding and an eventual powerful springboard. These truths will warm my body mind and soul. I will be a stronger and better man.
I have always had poor penmanship as they called it in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. I remember grade school teachers scowling at me when ever they had to read what I scrawled down on the big lined paper.
When I was in third grade, I remember having a writing assignment that I put forth my best effort to please the teacher. We were just beginning to learn cursive which to me was like a foreign language. I wrote slowly and neatly (I thought). I was so proud of my creation and I marched down to the teacher’s desk, so she could review it.
She took one look at my paper and said that it was really awful, and my handwriting did not measure up to the other students. I felt totally defeated and ashamed. I kept this experience to myself because I totally believed that I was inferior to my peers. I had no idea how to improve my handwriting and was getting the message that bad handwriting meant that I was stupid.
When I was in the fifth grade, my teacher wrote one of my essays on the board; complete with misspellings, grammatical errors based upon that she couldn’t read my writing. If she was trying to shame me, she did a hell of a job.
I remember the other students laughing at me and whispering to each other. I didn’t fight back. I had no allies. I felt powerless and alone. I kept feeling increasingly anxious and my self-esteem was in the toilet. I was carrying around this awful secret of feeling less than because of my handwriting.
One day this same fifth grade teacher who had been teaching like one hundred years announced to the class that I was the dumbest student she ever had in all her years of teaching. I wanted to hide under the desk and bury myself under the school. I had no idea what provoked this targeted attack.
While I was in the sixth grade, I thought I was doing OK academically until the first report card came out. I had what you call a technicolor report card; filled mostly with red F’s and a couple blue D’s. The teacher told my parents that the reason my grades were so low was because she couldn’t read my handwriting.
My parents tried to stand up for me and I remember getting slightly better grades after that.
I now wonder: WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TRY TO HELP ME WITH MY HANDWRITING???? WHY WAS SHAMING ME THE ONLY ACTION THAT WAS TAKEN?
HOW DID THIS BAD HANDWRITING EXPERIENCE CARRY OVER TO OTHER PARTS OF MY LIFE?
I learned to cover up my shame by pushing it away and stuffing way down inside. I was an anxious kid and later an anxious adult. I can connect this experience to anxiety’s origins. I learned to keep my fears to myself out of the likelihood that no one would care. I felt all alone though I think I hid this fact quite well. I was popular in school, but never felt anywhere near as intelligent as the obviously smart kids.
I am not denigrating the entire teaching profession. My wife, close friends and others I look up to are teachers. My mother worked in the New Jersey public school system for many years. Great teachers do exist, and they have the most important jobs on earth. They are way underpaid and underappreciated.
I did have more than my share of teachers who maybe should have been working in another profession or didn’t have the skills to reach me. Perhaps they were all burnt out and lost their compassion.
Lessons Learned:
Don’t use shame as a tool to change behavior because it doesn’t work and is traumatizing. Shame is an emotional state that lingers long and often in secret. The child feels like she has not only committed a major, unforgiveable infraction, she starts to look at herself as inferior to her peers.
The shame is later internalized and the belief that she is a bad, unworthy person becomes ingrained. The need to please others becomes more important than the need to please one’s self. She doesn’t feel that she has a self and her efforts are utilized for survival, not thrival( I just made up that word).
She has difficulty forming close relationships and feels lonely much of the time.
If you want her to learn, try to understand why she is not learning. Are emotional problems such as depression and/or anxiety affecting her ability to focus? Are her parents emotionally available to her? Does she have a learning disability that causes processing problems? Is she getting enough to eat or quality sleep? Does she feel like she is so stupid that it is senseless to try to understand a difficult assignment? Has she given up all hope of success?
Make sure you let her know how special she is. Is her sense of humor unique? Is she a leader? Is she empathetic and kind? Does she stand up for her peers who get marginalized? Can she play her instrument well? Is she a good athlete? Are there other ways that she demonstrates intelligence?
Most of all, let her know you care about her and have her back by your actions.
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