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The teachers droning voice was drowned out by the multitude of questions in Simons head. He could see the maths equations, he could do the maths equations, what he couldn’t get was how he could do them. All the other children had no problem with solving what the teacher put on the board. They were like sheep, just doing what they were told, following the lead of the teacher, at least that’s how Simons’ mother would describe them to him when he came home with a black eye and his stoic face masking how much pain he was in. Simon was the child who would stop and question everything he was being taught. He would mull over the tiniest detail until he had missed entire lessons, too caught up in his own mind to focus.
Math was the worst when it came to having order. History was facts, sure people had opinions but it was all based on facts. English was slightly more difficult to stay focused in. His mind would wander, “Why does the comma go there?” he would ask, the teacher would explain to him why, and would give him an example of what would happen if there was no comma where it should be(“’Let’s go eat, Mum!’ or “Lets go eat Mum’?” His teacher would say, “Which one is right?” He was obviously going to choose the former, he would never eat his mother!).
Math, on the other hand, while it had a ridged set of rules, made no sense. Why did he have to add nine and three together when he could just as easily add six and four for the same effect? Simon couldn’t focus on his multiplication tables when he was trying to figure out just what made a number and how could they(whoever ‘they’ were) could know that numbers were infinite if no one had ever tried counting, one by one(as everyone knows multiplication is tricky and you are more likely to make a mistake), how many numbers there were exactly. He couldn’t count how many times he lost track of a lesson because he was trying to count up to a new number that he could name.
Simons’ teachers’ voice roused him from his thought. He could see that she was pointing at the black board with the finger. The class was waiting in tense silence for him to make a mistake. He knew it. The teacher looked at him, expecting an answer. What was the question again? Something about the area of a… circle… Simon studied the board for what felt like hours, but was in reality only a few seconds. His school pullover itched at the neck and the cuffs, it pulled his smart button up in odd ways underneath. He fiddled with his pencil. The board had a giant circle drawn in the middle of it. A line piercing through the diameter. A floating in the green-black space just above the line signalled how wide the diameter was. Simons’ breath hitched in his throat. He knew the answer. He could see the working out in his mind. “Fifteen” he said. The teacher quirked an eyebrow. He repeated his answer louder “The area of the circle is fifteen centimetres squared.”
The teacher looked down at her book of notes and then back to Simon. “And how did you get that answer?” she said, trying to make eye contact happen. Simon shrugged, he felt interrogated. He could feel the answer bubbling in the back of his throat, trying to come out. He knew he was wrong. No matter how many times he told the teachers that he could see the problems in his head and work them out there, they wouldn’t believe him. He gave it another go, it always seemed to go like this. He willed his voice to be strong, but he could barely force out a squeak. The teacher looked down her nose at him. “Stay behind after class” she said. Of course he would be so unlucky to get a double of maths backing straight onto lunch.
The teacher left him alone for the rest of the lesson. After her demonstration at the black board the teacher wrote a dozen or so sums up on the board for the students to dutifully copy down in their gridded note books. Simon just wrote down the answers, he figured out the answer to quickly in his head to write down the steps he was taking. He was done in under fifteen minutes. He knew most kids would be proud to have finished so quickly, they would get praise from their teacher and set out to lunch with a pat on the head. For some reason it was different for Simon. He wouldn’t get to go out to lunch, let alone get a pat on the head. Simon was always accused of being ill disciplined and somehow cheating by sneaking a look at the teachers notes, even though he was a ways away from her thick, wooden desk. H could hear the frantic scratch of the girl next to him, writing down the sums and figuring them out in under twenty minutes. He could hear the whispers of the children behind him as clearly as if they were talking right in front of him.
The bell went, a shrill piercing sound that drilled right into the centre of Simons’ brain. He gritted his teeth against the scraping of chairs against the polished wooden floors, he closed his eyes against the roll of pencils against the desks, against the rising crescendo of squawking voices. Simon knew what was coming next. He supposed he was lucky, his teacher never struck him across the knuckled with the imposing ruler she carried around, it was only for show as far as Simon could tell. Simon couldn’t pronounce her name, it was something polish, he knew that for sure, so Simon and the rest of the class just called her Ms. P. Her family had immigrated to Ireland sometime before the war that he was learning about in history. Ms. P was in her late forties from what Simon could tell, she had never married. Her hair was pulled back into a tight, painful looking bun and her makeup, though sparse added a few years onto her appearance.
Ms. P loomed menacingly over Simons’ desk, clutching deathly tight to that infernal ruler. Simon licked his lips and looked around the room. It had emptied out sometime while Simon was caught up in trying to string together a coherent sentence to explain himself, though it hadn’t done him a lot of good the other twenty times Simon had tried it. His mouth was suddenly dry, he looked as close to Ms. P’s eyes has he could, he knew that she liked eye contact. His eyes landed on her left shoulder. He supposed that would have to do. Simon put his pencil on his desk, it sat along with his protractor, ruler and rubber(eraser) in a neat line. He knew that Ms. P didn’t like it when her students fiddled with things, Simon guessed she liked to think she had their full attention. Simon started picking at the buttons on his shirt cuffs instead.
Simon tensed up as Ms. P lowered herself to his height. She wasn’t a bad person, not really. She just wasn’t cut out to nurture inquisitive minds like Simons, that or she was never taught how to, Simon thought. Ms. Ps’ mouth was a thin, straight line. Simon knew that look, not by nature, but from experience. He was going to get chewed out big time. Simon held his breath. Ms. P tried to catch his eyes in her laser gaze again, tracking his flitting eyes with her slow moving milky blue ones. Simon swallowed.
“Well…” Ms. P always seemed to enjoy dragging this part out, even though both she and Simon knew how this was going to end. Simons’ mouth moved, though no words came out. He knew what he was going to say. He knew how to form the words with his usually uncooperative, uncoordinated mouth. A breath slid out past his lips. Simon couldn’t figure out why his vocal cords weren’t responding. He closed his eyes. Breath, just breath. Simon thought to himself, sucking in a lungful of air through his nose, in what could be taken as an exasperated sigh.
Simon could feel tears prickling behind his eyes. He didn’t know why this upset him so much. When his favourite fish died he didn’t shed a single tear, he felt sad on the inside, really he did. He just didn’t cry when he was supposed to. The same thing happened when Grannie died last April. His mother was crying, his father had unshed tears threating to spill down his cheeks. There was not a dry eye in the church that day. Except for Simon, who remained a stoic as ever in his black funeral suit. Simon always cried over the little things. Too many ice-cream options over whelmed him. Being told to look a teacher in the eye made his eyes water and his skin prickle.
Simons’ fingers dug into his knee from where he was holding it in a white knuckle grip. He could practically hear the other children teasing him about his wiggling fingers and the way he rocked his body to sooth himself. Simon wanted to get out of this oppressive room. Ms. P continued staring. Simon supposed it was no use in trying to come up with a new way to say the same thing. He resolved to use the same string of words he always had. “I can do it in my head. I know the answer before I can write the question”
Ms. P nodded her head. She tried to understand, Simon thought. She just couldn’t. Simon was different. He knew that, the other kids knew that, the teachers knew that. The only problem was that his teachers had no idea how to help him learn in a way that made sense to him. When he asked a question it was always answer with something along the lines of “Because the book says so” and followed with the tittering of other students, amused at Clueless Simon, just trying to figure out the world that everyone but him had an unspoken hand book to.
“We both know how this is going to go, Simon” Ms. P sighed, looking down at her hands which were wrapped around the edge of the desk, not unlike the way a birds talons would curl around a tree branch before the bird ripped into its’ still warm prey. Ms. P wasn’t as oblivious as Simon had thought. “Then can we just get this over with” Simon fell into the sentence that had become routine to him. His voice had finally decided to cooperate with him. Ms. P looked at him, she always gave him the same look when he said that, and followed it up with “Simon, you know how rude that is!”
No. No Simon did not realise how what he said was rude. There the adults go again, telling Simon something but not bothering to explain to him what he had done wrong and just expecting him to agree. Simon wanted to yell, he wanted to kick the table over, he could feel his hands beginning to tremble slightly against his legs. Of course, like always, Simon did nothing but hang his head in shame. Shame at not being smart like the other kids. Shame at not being the bright young lad his parents always told him he could be if only he would try just that little bit harder to concentrate in class, to understand what was being said by the teachers. A tear slipped down Simons’ cheek. Like always.
Simon gathered up his stuff close to his chest before springing up and away from his teacher. Like always he went clockwise towards the door, his only escape and, like always, Ms. P didn’t make a move to stop him. She only called out that he would have to make up his class time on Friday afternoon. Like always, he did.