Trauma Revisited

One day when I was in first grade (can you find me?) a lady called each of us out of the classroom to test us on our letters. I was very confident because, of course, I knew all my letters. We were moving through the alphabet quickly when she pointed to a lowercase P and I said, “P”. She circled it!! “Why did you circle it?”“Because that isn’t a P it’s a Q.”“No, it’s a P.”“No, see a P faces that way and a Q faces this way.”“But it doesn’t have a tail at the bottom.”“Sorry, it’s still a P.” I tried to reason with her. She was unmoved by my argument and wouldn't change it!!

I can’t believe how mad this still makes me. I am afraid I will never be able to forgive that lady and I still say it was an unfair test!!

I was testing kindergarteners, on their letters in Gloria’s class last week; I wouldn’t have marked the Q wrong . . . especially if they had good explanation.