Oblique Look at Early Childhood

A piece of the Internet:

A writing device that I use when I get stuck is Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies. While I've never seen an actual deck of these cards, I do use this website to provide me a unique way of looking at a situation when I get stuck writing. It's a random server that gives a lot of different ways of looking at problems.

A story:

Scenes from the Academy

When I was four years old, I attended Covenant Christian Academy, a Christian private school in Panama City, FL. Originally, I only went three days a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Other kids went everyday, so I had to learn very early that if I wanted to participate and do everything, I had to be able to do tasks quickly so I could catch-up on what I missed. If I wanted to make a J out of assorted legumes and construction paper, then I would to have blaze through my math sheets and eschew coloring in true colors for broad strokes.

In the first grade, we had a school-wide Thanksgiving event. My class was better than the other first grade class because we had real feathers for a pine-cone turkeys. The other class had construction paper feathers. We won so hardcore. We glammed up our turkeys with so many feathers that they looked more like a drag queens centerpiece or the NBC logo than an actual Thanksgiving symbol, but we as children fully embraced the concept that more is more.

And then there was the meal. They took us to the meeting hall and sat us all at long tables. Half of us were dressed as Indians and the other half as Pilgrims. As a child who hated being sticky, I obviously sided with the more civilized English. From there, the meal started.

Our re-enactment was pretty true to the original: we Pilgrims brought guns and smallpox and the Indians brought corn and that commercial 80's where the Indian cries that tear because of littering. We ate a big meal and the Pilgrims forced all of the people dressed as Indians (which, why did we call them Indians? As a child, I'm sure I could have wrapped my mouth around the words "Native American.") to march the Trail of Tears and go live in Oklahoma. Then, we fought the British. Okay, maybe not really. But we did have a meal.

I have always been a huge fan of ketchup, and the fact that there was no bottle on the table for either my potatoes or turkey was distressing. However, on the side of my plate, nuzzled between the roll and the dressing, there was this gelatinous blob in roughly the same color as ketchup. I tried to dip my turkey in it, but it wouldn't give. Always a rational child, I assumed that the ketchup had congealed because it was too cold in the kitchen. Thus, I scraped some on my turkey and ate it. I promptly wretched--as much as I loved ketchup, my first encounter with cranberry sauce left something to be desired. One of the den mothers of my class explained the dish to me and told me that I'd like it later in life.

I've always hated that--just because someone is older doesn't mean they know a damn thing about you as a person. Instead, what it means is that they think that the next generation will be a copy of the current one, and, thus, their experience can inform the future.

Celebrating Shorter

Yesterday was Celebrate Shorter. It's this campus-wide event where they cancel class to counter-intuitively celebrate student achievement. The fact that it occurs on April Fool's Day isn't lost on me. Basically, the day goes from 9 to 4:30 (about the length of my normal Wednesday), and there are different student-led events around campus at all times to show just how smart and accomplished we all are.

Oh, this is also the day when we get all of the awards.

So, I raked in awards yesterday. I got the "Excellence in Theatre Studies" (three years running, now), "Loue P. Newman Award for Excellence" (Outstanding senior that shows academic strength, leadership, involvement, quest for knowledge, growth in spirituality, etc...basically, the most ultimate senior at Shorter this year), and the "Thelma Hall Creative Writing Award" (best creative writer on campus).

So, two quick stories about Celebrate Shorter and why I think it shows some major issues in my time at Shorter:

1. During the Awards Lunch, I broke one of my cardinal rules of eating at any place that doesn't have assigned seating (I had an assigned table). I sat in the corner seat. This only gives one the possibility of three conversations while an end seat has two and a middle chair has five. The philosophy of always picking a middle chair is that if a conversation gets awkward or stagnates on one side, I can simply turn to the other side and enter whatever they are talking about. But, in the interest of saying as few inappropriate things as possible, I cornered myself. Bad move.

So, when we sat down, salad and cake were already in front of us. Then they brought bread, tea, and water. And we weren't allowed to eat anything until after ALL the awards were given. Wrong answer. Being the classy individual that I am, I ate both the wedges of cheese from my salad and snuck a roll during the athletic awards.

But, anyway, I was sitting across from two upper administration people and I had a professor of mine seated next to me...so, I have to mind my manners around the adults. Which means I can't talk a whole lot. And so they talk...about their lives...and their kids...and the school...and their kids...and then they talk about the kids some more. At one point, the male upper administration asked if he should get his daughter the Disney phone that allows you to check your child's location via GPS and check their phone calls (and I guess texts) from any computer.

They debated this for awhile, and as the conversation was winding down, I said it seemed a little Big Brother. He said it wasn't being Big Brother, it was being a parent. Properly chastised, I shut up. And started wonering what his children's lives must be like.

My parents never felt the need to check up on me. They knew I was a good kid. They trusted me to blaze my own path and if something went wrong, I'd either ask for their help or handle it on my own. If they had tried to micro-manage my life like that, I would have rebelled to another country. I would have ex-patted to a place so distant that it costs too much to call on the telephone. And if this is the kind of attitude that infuses something as simple as a choice of cell phone, then I can only imagine what the rest of the privacy policies of that household are.

Granted, I understand the need to know what is going on in a child's life. But looking over their shoulder is going to make them needy, obsessive-compulsive, and paranoid. Children won't trust their parents with big issues because their parents' have proven themselves untrustworthy. Trust, like respect, for every human being is earned and not something that is naturally instilled. I know that this sounds a bit idiotic, but maybe, just maybe...kids can sometimes take care of themselves.

This reminds me of a Violent Acres post that I read that covers a very similar subject and is worth a look.

Second story in the near future.