Say "Organism"

On public school class rooms as shame chambers.

Welcome to Cheaper Than Therapy, a healing newsletter for 80s babies by Shani Silver. This newsletter does not publish free content, but if you’d like to read it you can subscribe here. Thank you for enjoying the work of independent writers.

Reading aloud in public is much less relevant to my daily existence than my education convinced me it would be. You don’t have to get too far in life to realize that reading from a lesson plan’s chosen novel or reciting a textbook chapter one-by-one around the room was little more than a way to occupy students for a decent chunk of class time. Who cares that we’re putting the sensitive, easily embarrassed ones on the spot, it’s good for ‘em! At one time they said corn syrup was good for kids too, I’m just saying.

Jill H. Brown—or maybe it was Jill C. Brown, I honestly don’t remember, both taught at my school—was my A.P. US History teacher. The hardest class I’d taken to date, Mrs. Brown gave me my first (and only) C grade on a test that I had actually studied for quite a bit. I didn’t cry in class but I came close. Mrs. Brown was probably sick of all her C students who never gave a shit and chose to take pity on my dependency on achievement for self worth and worked with me until I ended the year on an A- note. She also helped me bitchslap the coolest boy in school, and for that she is my hero.