"Arts 'N Crass" [S2 Ep01]
...God, this brings back awful memories.
I've been a stickler for spelling. Always have been. When I was much younger it was a thing to try to enforce it on others, but as I've grown I've realized that's not really feasible nor is it polite, but I've always been very good at spelling.
My teachers picked up on this. Very, very early. I was entered into spelling bees.
I won every single one.
Every time I was entered into a spelling bee, I nailed that shit. If a word did not come naturally to me, I studied it, learned the etymology, got a feel for various languages and how they spelled things, pronounced things, how things worked, just to figure it out more easily. It was something I did very well, and I liked it.
Until, one year, one of the judges completely mispronounced a word in a way I'd never heard of. "Praline". It was always spoken to me pronounced "Pray-Leen" instead of "Prah-Leen", and there were no alternate pronunciations offered in the study book, no regional dialects to be aware of. It was just presented as a word. I had several moments growing up where I'd read a word and never heard it pronounced, and it'd bother me if I got it wrong in my head, but that's neither here nor there.
I was disqualified because I spelled it differently than the book had said. And when it was explained to me that the fault was not mine, it was a judge's, I said "Okay, I'm done. No more." Mom hadn't reached her point of trying to force me to do things whether I liked them or not to brag about me yet, likely figuring she could find something else I was good at to bandy about as if it were her own accomplishment, so that was that. No more spelling bees.
And then I transferred to a new school.
The vocabulary homework was notorious in this school. Kids would be crying in study hall at how long it took them to do it, with teachers reassuring them that no, forty-five minutes was hardly out of the ordinary, this was okay, what about YOU, how long would it take YOU?" and I'd reply "Ten minutes tops." "...Okay, he's a very different example, don't listen to him."
There was a big spelling bee coming up. Many schools involved. Apparently funding for the schools if they did well? I don't know. What I know is that the teachers got us all to start taking spelling tests in class, and told us that if we did well we'd have a chance to enter a bee.
I took my teacher aside and made it plainly apparent: I would not be taking part in a spelling bee. I was done with them. I had a history, and I had been burned, and I wanted no part. I was then informed that these tests were part of our grades, to enforce us doing our level best on them. I talked to her and said that if I'm entered into a bee, I'm not participating, and I'm not hearing otherwise.
I did my testing. I scored above everyone else. They asked me if I wanted to be in the bee. I said no.
So they entered me anyways.
And I was furious. Apoplectic. Volcanically pissed. I had explained in numerous ways, to numerous people, on numerous occasions: I would not be doing this. "Well you have to. Well we think you're very good at this, so you should. Well you don't have a choice." So they gathered the students across the grades in our school to figure out which was the best to send out to this bee.
I was called up and instructed to spell "Twister".
"T W X Q Z R I V. Twister."
"...Are you /sure/ that's how you want to--" "THAT IS MY FINAL ANSWER." "...Incorrect." "MAY I LEAVE NOW." "...Yes." and I stomped out of that little mini-library on campus, tears in my eyes.
I remember making it halfway across the campus when one of the teachers in charge ran me down to ask why I was so obviously throwing this, and I flew into a tear-filled rage at them. I had /told/ them I did not want to take part. I had /told/ them I had done these contests before, and I did not want to do them anymore. I had been bullied into doing this because my grades were on the line. I had been told I could opt out, and I was /lied to./ Through it all.
She tried to cajole me to get back into the little library to try again, and I said "First of all, I'm a mess. You're going to make a scene, and I'm embarrassed enough that I had to make myself look like an /idiot/ in front of all these other smart kids to get out of this stupid contest I never wanted to be a part of in the first place. Secondly, get my mom on the line and she'll tell you I'm not doing this, she'll take my side. And third, this is a "Christian" school that's /not taking the children's consent into account/ when it comes to these things. I have to wonder what the media will think if they hear the teachers here don't believe in the students' consent? What ELSE might they be getting up to???"
She froze. I remember that intense, sudden, stabbing fear across her eyes. I remember how this went from "spoiled child who wouldn't listen to their betters" to "someone who was coerced and lied to to get results out of them" to "this is not just some snotty child, this is a tiny person who has been pushed to their limit; we're trying to get them to use their brain to our advantage, and they /know how to use their brain to their own advantage/, maybe we should back off."
I went unmolested for the rest of that day. I was never approached about this topic again.
