One Flew Over the English Class

October 31, 2007

English Class By the time I started high school, I was already an avid writer. I kept a journal and a notebook full of poetry. Social activities started to gain priority in my life and I found myself reading less during those formative years. However, I could easily swallow a novel assigned by any English teacher in a day or two.

During my senior year, we were assigned One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, one of the pillar literary works read by all high schoolers. I read it in a day and returned to school only to discover that we would be reading almost the entire novel aloud in class. This was, in my view, unacceptable. High school seniors should be beyond reading aloud during class. I stopped attending class until the Cuckoo reading was completed. We watched the movie and were assigned an essay, which I aced. I will never forget the words my teacher said to me when he handed me back the paper, “You’re a very bright girl, Melissa, it’s a shame you don’t show up for class more often.”

At that age, I was inclined to do little more than roll my eyes and return to my desk. If only I had spoken up and informed that so-called educator that I’d read the entire book on the day he handed it out, that the class periods I’d missed were spent at home writing poetry, and that a roomful of sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds reading a novel out loud as if they were still in elementary school was the real shame. My absences affected my final grade, despite the fact that the actual work I turned in always received an A grade.

I’ve always carried that moment with me, and wished I could have found the nerve - the desire even - to tell that man that my grade and attendance were more a reflection of the public school system and his teaching skills than it was a demonstration of my own abilities. After all, he was the football coach and rumor had it he was teaching English as a result of cutbacks, and that it was an obligation that allowed him to continue managing the football team.

Now, many years later, I don’t wonder why signs posted around business offices are printed with blatant grammatical errors. It is no mystery to me why many of the e-mails I receive from friends and business associates are fraught with misused punctuation and poor spelling, or why I’ve encountered published novels containing written sentences that are not even coherent.

When English teachers are not allowed to teach grammar and sentence structure beyond elementary school, when athletic coaches are forced to teach academic subjects only so that they can continue to manage the sports team, and when kids who are about to graduate high school are reading at a level which warrants reading aloud in class, it’s no wonder that the state of writing in today’s world is in shambles.

This not meant as a tirade against the public school system, though I suppose it qualifies. It’s a reminder that not all students who skip class are off taking drugs and flirting with the opposite sex. I doubt my teachers realized that my many absences in school were a red flag not to my delinquent status, but to the fact that I was bored, unchallenged, and frustrated. I could look back on memories like my episode with the football coach turned English teacher and feel cheated, but instead I use it as an experience that has taught me about the world — one that allows me to sympathize with those of my peers who were not pushed to learn proper writing skills (those who actually needed to read aloud in class), along with those who were passed over just because they seemed to sail through with little effort.