#28

There was a time when I believed school in general was meant to be a chore.  Actually, depending on what instructors you have, it can give you an incentive to learn more.  But given my circumstances, how was I to know that?

As it is, Mary Deutsch—I just called her Mary because I was told to call her "Miss Mary" and thought that was juvenile—was my instructional assistant for all six years of elementary school.  She thought the best way to have children learn was to drain all pleasure from the experience.

A typical day would consist of me minding my own business, trying to learn and listen to whatever the teacher was saying, and there she was telling me rather meanly to pay attention.  It was no use telling her that I was, 'cause she wanted an excuse to nag me.  One time I kept talking to a girl I liked, and she used that as an excuse that I was copying down someone else's work instead of doing my own.

And the big rule was: Don't get her started on movies.  To her, my biggest pleasure was the greatest obstacle in being able to learn.  My imaginary ADD and the most innocent mistakes she would attribute to my love of movies.  And as you can imagine, verbal abuse made for much of the interaction.

At the beginning of fifth grade, I watched Disney's Belle's Magical World, a direct-to-video spin-off of Beauty and the Beast that had three vignettes on good virtues, for the umpteenth time.  The first vignette involved forgery as a plot point, and even though it depicted forgery in a negative light, I decided to write her a letter of resignation to get her out of the picture.  It did not work.

Many years after this time, it dawned on me that she must have used the works of James Dobson.  Because being the founder and chairman of the ultra-right-wing Christian group Focus on the Family, he was written perhaps dozens of sick parenting books that zealously advocate corporal punishment and making an enemy out of your child (or, in this case, student).

Because of this, I now realize that Mary probably wasn't a bad person, and that she was probably just used by these works, just like George W. Bush was used by the other Republicans.  In fact, she taught me how to add, subtract, and tie my shoe, and looked out for my safety.  I've even run into her a couple times since then, and she said nothing bad about me.  Those things, however, did not make it worth having her.  If you're wondering how this influenced my life, it is because all the repression against my deepest pleasures made me a more boring person.