I remember being in elementary school or grade school or whatever it's called wherever else. This particular memory is about several situations of the same nature that I found myself in time and again. Not any particular event on one particular day, but an event that happened many times on many different days and across several different teachers as well.
Unless you're from somewhere with a decent education system (anywhere but America for the most part), then you've likely had the dumb kid in your class who read at a rate of about twelve words per minute on their best day. This is the kid who struggles on words like "trouble", "between" and "is." The real last of the class. In my pre-high school classes (and in a few high school classes), I had several of these missing links. I also had many teachers whose idea of effectively teaching the subject material to the class was to go around the room making each student read a (or several, dependent on their length) paragraphs of the book out loud to the class instead of standing up there and doing the job they're paid to do. I'm sure that in a group of genetically-altered clones with identical learning rates, the ability to get along with each other and no desire to be total asshats for no reason that this would be a much less ignorant practice. In the real world, however, everyone learns at different speeds, not everyone likes each other and some kids should just be beaten with a rubber hose until they can grasp the concept of respecting their peers.
When it came to be read-out-loud day, I always groaned inwardly. The number of Reading-impaired cretins in my classes was significant enough that it almost seemed as if the teacher didn't care if we were exposed to the material or not. But the reading would begin and, as odds would have it, often enough it began with one of these shining success stories of the American ejukashun system.
Th. The. F. Fir. First. Pr. Pres. Presid. Presiden. President. Of. Th. The. Un. Unit. United. S. Sta. Stats. (Here, the teacher would either intervene and correct them or fuss at the person who did before taking credit for the correction.) States. W. Wa. Was. G. Geo. George. Wa. Was. Wash. Washin. Washing. Washington.
Obviously, for anyone with even a few firing brain cells, this is an agonizing rate at which to progress. Writhing in the pain of realizing just how bad my classmates' ability (or lack thereof) to read was, my only means of soothing the burning secretions of my stupidity detection gland was to read the material silently to myself at a more reasonable speed, essentially narrowing my perception of the world around me to the state from which the only release was either reading through to the end of what I was reading or someone calling out my name. More often than not, the latter was more likely to be the case, as time had flown by and my turn to read out loud had arrived. First, I would flip back a few pages, straining to remember what the last thing was that had been read aloud, hoping it had hooked in my mind. After a few moments of this, I would just admit to not being aware of where I was supposed to pick up. Knowing that I was obviously not on the same track as the rest of the class, and from my flipping several pages back that I had been reading ahead, the teacher would take this opportunity to provide me with a page number. Just a page number, nothing else. I would then locate the page and start reading the first full paragraph, as I had been given no other details. From the other side of the room, one of the more-than-likely inbred automatons would provide, in the best annoyed tone he could manage, assistance in the form of "We done done that."
Shrugging helplessly, looking for a little more help, I would look to the teacher for something along the lines of "Second column, third paragraph down. Starts with "The House of Cats brainpan..."" or anything a little more helpful than just a page number. Occasionally, this is the point where the teacher would lecture me not to read ahead before moving on to provide just the kind of direction I was hoping for, but usually they would only lecture and then me the first word of the paragraph I was supposed to be on. It was usually "A", "The" or any other number of vague, generic, extremely common words. Usually, I could find my place with no more than three "We done done that."s thus enabling me to face the next irritating level of the humiliation of reading aloud.
I do not enjoy being forced into participation of anything and especially dislike when my performance will be observed by the excrement I called classmates. But after finally locating and beginning to read the selection of material thrown on me like so many heavy sacks across the back of an ass, I would never make it beyond 6 words into the paragraph before some rude moron (90% of the time the same probably-inbred brain leech as before) would speak up in the same annoyed tone as before with "Huh? Speak up. We cain't heer ya."
Gritting my teeth, I would start over at a slightly increased volume, again never making it beyond the 6-word mark before one of two possibilities arose. Either I was again interrupted by the same cain't-heer-ya shit-for-brains with another barely-understood demand for an increase in volume or we could skip this step and move on to the next nuisance.
Whether I received that second polite request to read at yet a higher volume or not, I always ended up hearing "Don't know whut yer sayin'. Slow down."
FINALLY after going through all the embarrassment and annoyance so far mentioned, I was usually able to make it to the end of my reading without further humiliation but occasionally I would receive another "cain't heer ya" or "slow down" or two. After I finished reading the last word, I always rolled my eyes and sighed as loudly as possible. And that was what happened every time our classtime assignment was reading the material out loud in turn. Looking back at it, I have a few gripes to get out in regards to this mess.
First, this is not a good method for teachers to expose the students to the subject material. When you've got Ten Second Tom reading at his incredibly impressive 12wpm because he's having a good day, you are slowing the entire class (with the exception of the dumbest kids who are already almost at a full stop) to this little idiot's level. Time well spent? No. Improving their reading skills? Not by a long shot. When the kid stumbles on the word "vote" three sentences in a row, they're clearly not getting any better at reading, much less understanding the mechanics thereof.
B: Scolding a child for reading ahead--because the grinding progress all the slow kids are barely making is unbearably boring to them--is only telling that child that trying to better himself/herself is unacceptable and will only result in their being berated for trying to do better or make the otherwise uninteresting material more bearable by reading at what they consider a more comfortable pace. Don't you dare actually read the material, ESPECIALLY if youre reading faster than 0 words per minute. How dare you TRY to stomach the material you only see as a required obstacle instead of a subject of interest? Get your heads out of your asses, teachers. If the kid's reading the crap, let them read it. Don't bitch at them just because they're not dragging their literary knuckles along the ground like all the other cretins.
Second, when you force students to perform even something as simple as reading out loud to the class, you're not reinforcing the kid's confidence in himself nor are you building character. You're just forcing them into a situation that is highly uncomfortable and embarrassing for them for the entire time they're reading. This is what leads to the fast and quiet reading that draws out ignorant comments from the more alpha male jackoff students fussing and telling the already-uncomfortable kid to speak up and slow down. They just want the humiliation to end as soon as possible and that's why they read as fast and quietly as they do.
And firstly, the time you spend berating the child for reading ahead, not giving him enough information to quickly find where he's supposed to pick up the reading, allowing the deluded self-claimed superior Neanderthals to interrupt, embarrass and draw out the kid's discomfort, you're setting the entire class back even further than just skipping over the kid and moving on.
So to any teacher I ever had, any big-headed, bug-eyed, "superior" (Sorry. I guess you would use a phrase like "better then", as your knowledge of words and pronunciations is lower than ten times your IQ.) classmates who took the time to interrupt and further embarrass me, I thank you for providing me with this opportunity to give you all a nice collective message. Fuck you all and have a terrible day.
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