Looking back at school as an adult has allowed me to explain events that I could never make sense of as a child. I now realize that some of the things my teachers did to me, were done to try and "inspire" me to raise above my position in the social hierarchy.
In elementary school, my desk was a mess. I had a teacher who decided that it would be a good idea to dump the desk out in front of all my classmates as punishment (this is EXTREMELY humiliating). Never mind the fact there were 3 or 4 other kids whose desks were just as, if not messier than mine (they expected more out of me).
Once, one of the boys bathrooms was trashed, so any time certain guys went to the bathroom the teacher had to pick an escort for them. Most of us were terrified to even ask to go pee (because having to ask to perform an essential bodily function is humiliating enough -- what if teacher decided I need an escort?). So... one guy asked to go pee and the teacher had to pick someone to escort them. Who in the class was responsible enough, but not so high in the social hierarchy that it would be embarrassing a task to escort another guy to pee? Me.
Or how about being made one of the "School Bus Patrol"...
It took me 20 years to figure out why some of this shit happened.
In middle school, 6th grade, the separation between the socially well-adjusted kids and the socially not-well-adjusted kids was blatantly obvious - they literally separated us into "West" (aka "Left" aka "Wrong") and "East" (aka "Right" aka "Right"). My defiance all through 5th grade earned me a spot in the 6W, I immediately noticed who got into which wing. This realization was a turning point in my schooling, its the point where I flat-out gave up (great inspiration, huh?).
For whatever reason, between 6th and 7th grade my Mom decided I should be "Excel" again and made a huge fuss at the school. So in the summer between 6th and 7th grade, I was given an IQ test at the school. Summer break, 9am, taking a test I didn't want to take, at a time I didn't want to be awake at, in a building I DID NOT WANT TO BE IN, with a test-giver who obviously felt the same way I did.
The test he gave me was meant for a certain age range, some of the pictures he showed me were colored drawings... So when he asked, "What's missing in this picture?" I got really frustrated, I didn't know if the artist intentionally left something out or implied its presence, hell, there were probably a million things that weren't drawn in there that were missing if it had been a real photo...
So I started obvious. "Well, she's going to fall off the floor if she keeps walking". A woman pushing a cart, in some kind of supermarket. The floor had been "implied" to exist, but a few feet in front of her, the tiles vanished and a white abyss awaited her. The guy looked at the card and got somewhat upset "Besides the missing floor"...
Yeah, this test was going to go real well.
The next card - a picture of half of an orange. I glanced at the card, then back up at my tester, giving him a look. A short pause and.... "BESIDES THE OTHER HALF THE ORANGE!"... of course, I think I got this card wrong - because I had never studied the anatomy of an orange (which is obviously essential knowledge).
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