A Trip to the Principal’s Office

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1946, Austin Elementary School, Sulphur Springs, Texas

I began third grade on the front row. I loved being close to the teacher. But listening to others read proved difficult, and more than once I was admonished for spouting off as another student struggled.  Soon I was moved to the last row near the bookshelves along the back wall. As a privilege to dull the disappointment of banishment and silencing, the teacher said I could read whatever I wanted while the rest of the class read Dick and Jane stories.  Thus muzzled, I invented a silent reading game in which I imagined a better way to say the same thing.  “Dick and Jane ran up the hill.”  No.  “Dick and Jane rushed up the slope.”  That was better. But the library books were as dull as Dick and Jane, and I continued to butt in.  In this state of frustration, recess took on added importance.  I wanted out of prison and into the schoolyard. 

But recess proved problematic, too. The problem began when David, my next-door neighbor, a year older and in the fourth grade, bragged of his prowess at a math game the fourth-grade teacher conducted.   I asked him about it.  He explained that the teacher began by announcing a number less than ten, then rapidly added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided with additional numbers. A successful player had to carry mentally a correct running total and be the first to give the correct answer.  It was an advanced game, he assured me, not one for third-graders. 

This put-down sticking in my craw, the next day I ventured to see what the math game was all about.  Fourth grade remained in class during recess for the first three grades, it was a beautiful day, and I knew the fourth-grade windows would be open.  It was easy to sneak off the playground into forbidden territory in the bushes beneath the fourth-grade windows.  I was in luck and listened to the game.  It seemed easy.  Soon, I became a regular eavesdropper. 

One day at the end of an especially difficult sequence, in a moment of perfect self-forgetting, I yelped the correct answer with heart-cockle satisfaction.  Silence in the classroom told me I’d been overheard.  There was no place to go, so I hugged the wall, praying the teacher would not come to the window. 

“Young man.”  It was the math game voice. 

I looked up into her smiling face.  “Yes, ma’am,” I croaked. 

“Shouldn’t you be on the playground? 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

“Well, run along then.  You’re missing recess.” 

I retreated to the sanctity of the playground and our regular games, happy that nothing more had come of it. 

The next day troubles multiplied when I asked the teacher a question about a recess game called “tops” after the little round, heart-shaped wooden toy that could be set spinning on its tip with a toss and quick jerk of twine wound tightly around it. 

A top spins in place for a while, slows, wobbles, falls and rolls to a stop nearby. It was fun to play and I regularly brought one to school.  But what interested me most was the fact that the spinning toy defied gravity and stood upright on its point.  Why, I asked the teacher, does a spinning top not fall over until it stops spinning?  She gave me a blank look and stammered, “I don’t know.”   It was a shock. Until that moment every question I asked an adult had been met with an answer.  I cringed, certain I had embarrassed her. 

A few days later the teacher called me to her desk and announced she had a short meeting to attend with the principal and was appointing me as class monitor. Students were expected to remain quiet and at their desks.  I was to write the names of “miscreants” on the blackboard. It was my first time to hear the word but I grasped the meaning.  She gave a writing assignment to the class, positioned me by the door with a piece of chalk and departed down the hall.  Responsibility! Authority!  My chance for redemption!

Swollen with self-importance, I postured at the blackboard, chalk poised.  My charges bent to their tasks.  Soon, however, I reverted to a third-grader and volunteered to be the lookout as spit-wads and paper planes flew.  After a few minutes of fun I poked my head out the door. The principal and the fourth-grade teacher were talking with our teacher, who suddenly turned to look my way.  Our eyes met and she immediately started back toward class.  I ducked inside, hissing the alarm. 

The next moment she was at the door. 

“Tom, come with me,” she said.  “We are going to Mr. Harrington’s office.” 

The principal’s office!  My mind raced.  Would it be the spiked paddle or the cat o’ nine tails?  Boys in the upper grades of Austin Elementary School swore oaths about the torment Mr. Harrington inflicted for misbehavior, and I believed every word.  The chickens had come home to roost, just as Mother had warned.  Bad behavior never pays. 

In the office were the fourth grade teacher and the fearsome Mr. Harrington.  He smiled and said, “Tom, would you like to be in the fourth grade?  If you do you can play the math game every day.” 

My mind raced.  It must be mockery.  I imagined a novel punishment worse than the lash or the spiked paddle, something awful and embarrassing.  I would be paraded to the front of the fourth grade, the teacher would rattle off an impossible string of numbers, I would fail miserably and return in disgrace to the third-grade classroom. 

“Yes, sir,” I mumbled. 

It was only when they asked me to help carry my desk to fourth grade that I realized that there might be something more to it than my fears.  It took me a while to muster the courage to shout the math game answer. 

Epilogue  

Sixty years later I gained fresh perspective on this episode from Joe Kennedy, a lifelong friend who was in the third-grade class with me. One day over lunch as we were telling and retelling tales about our youth in Sulphur Springs, he recalled the episode. 

 He told me he asked the teacher why they had put me in fourth-grade. 

“Because he’s so smart,” she replied. 

“I’m smart, too,” Joe said.  “I’ve made straight A’s since first grade.  You can’t be any smarter than that.  I want to go to the fourth grade, too.” 

His logic was impeccable but his argument did not prevail.  We laugh about it still.