You’re Not Supposed to Know That
In response to alto’s Tuesday Quotable
Sent to first grade at five, I was smaller and less developed than my peers. This meant I was comparatively inept at athletic endeavors throughout elementary school. Laughed off the court, I sought refuge in academics.
My parents were happy to oblige my curiosity. My mother filled my head with grisly tales from English history — no doubt the origin of my morbid imagination — and my father was in charge of math and science. Dinner table conversation regularly began with, “What did you learn in school today?” in response to which my sister and I were expected to fill my parents in on the highlights of the day’s lessons.
I believe I was eight when, one evening, I reported with authority that a larger number could not be subtracted from a smaller one. My engineer father, aghast, set down his forkful of mashed potatoes with a, “That simply isn’t true!”
I was shocked. My father contradicted a teacher! Bug-eyed, I listened to an explanation of negative numbers involving a thermometer and debt. It made complete sense. How could my teacher not know this?
The next day in math class, I raised my hand.
“Yes, Meg?”
Excited to report on my enlightenment, I launched into a replay of my father’s negative number lecture.
The teacher, annoyed expression on her face, responded, “You’re not supposed to know that yet.”
The other kids gave me the side eye as if to say, “Why mess with the machine?” And the teacher proceeded as if I had not spoken at all.
It was a moment of disillusionment. I held teachers in high regard. I believed what they said. Now, here was my teacher essentially admitting she lied to us and not even addressing the lie. We were to continue believing and repeating her lie until whenever “yet” occurred.
This was wrong. Why didn’t it bother the rest of the class? Maybe they didn’t believe me.
That evening, I reported the incident over dinner. My parents gave each other one of those telepathic agreement looks and shifted in their seats. My father, took a breath. “What I told you about negative numbers is true. In a couple of years you’re going to learn about them in school. Until then, just do your math the way your teacher wants you to.”
I got the message. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t make it hard for yourself. Even if you know something is true, don’t speak out if it means trouble, if it means not succeeding.
The negative number affair was small in the grand scheme of things, but its lesson reverberated down the length of my life, a lesson so many of us receive in one form or another:
Be careful speaking truth to power. Keep your head down and your thoughts to yourself.
I wish I could say I was all, “Fuck that!” But I haven’t been. After all, I want to survive. I want to succeed.
I just hope I’m getting better.
