Solveig Pederson Zarubin
Ages 6, 8, and 15ish

Scene: me, a little tomboy-looking girl, with short brown hair which was long and blond fairly recently. Sitting in a first grade classroom, with a worksheet in front of me.

I already knew how to read, and I could read well before kindergarten; it seemed like I’d been able to read forever. Many others in the class either weren’t reading or were reading much more slowly than I was. The teacher had given us a worksheet to do, and was walking around watching us work.

I had already finished the assignment. I was curious what everyone else was doing — and how did they do it? Which parts were they still working on? Nosiness that I still have today! So with nothing else to do, I was looking around…

And heard my name — and then the teacher sternly saying, “Eyes on your own paper!”

I didn’t realize she was talking to me, or what she was talking about.

“Not me!” I thought. “I was already done!” How could I be cheating? I was just looking around to see how everyone else was doing.

I’m pretty sure I got in trouble for that, and one lesson I think I unconsciously got from this was: “Getting too far ahead of the group, being too smart, or otherwise standing out from the crowd — can be trouble!”

Later on in second or third grade, we would be assigned to read a story from our reading books. It always felt like the teacher gave a humongous amount of time to read a story that was only three or four pages. I could always finish it really quickly, but then had nothing to do. Or nothing to do without calling attention that I was done so abnormally early — I thought that if I started reading or doing something else it would be so obvious that I was done way earlier than everyone else.

I didn’t want to seem different or weird. I thought that everyone must notice that I was done and think I had cheated on the reading somehow, like my first grade teacher had assumed.

“She must have been skimming, or just skipping parts. She couldn’t have read it already!”

So I would page back a page or two when I was done -– carefully checking around me to make sure I matched the page everyone else was on. I could be a bit ahead, but not too much. Then I would re-read that page, and then look around and see if I needed to re-read it again, until more people were done. I’d see people triumphantly finishing and then being happy to be “done” — yet I had been done for a long time and felt like I had needed to wait for them.

In upper elementary and moving on to middle school, I realized that raising my hand every time I knew the answer to a question could also be dangerous. I was worried about what people would think: “she’s a know-it-all” “She’s a goody-goody teacher’s pet…”

And I didn’t really want to raise my hand for every single question, that would get annoying to everyone. And isn’t it better for the others to have to answer the questions too?

Even though I knew the answers to most or all of the questions, I would try to figure out how many times I could/should raise my hand without attracting too much attention. Every third question? Once or twice per class? Just wait for the teacher to call on me?

This always felt very unnatural but also much safer.. Eventually I was thinking so much about how to spread out my participation, that I wound up just not participating most of the time in class. Safer, but also quite mind-numbing as a constant practice.

In high school, the grade in several classes, including U.S. History, was based on class participation. The history teacher was also rather intimidating, making it even harder to respond in class, although he eventually became one of my favorite teachers. Because I really wanted to keep a good grade, and I was so used to not participating, I had to really consciously plan that I would raise my hand at least once or twice every class.

Even now, as an adult, sometimes I still need to work on “raising my hand” (especially in a large group) and being comfortable with achieving and showing my talents.

Having good role models at work, joining public speaking/leadership groups like Toastmasters, and increasing my self-confidence by trying new things and succeeding at them has really helped this.

I still have trouble speaking out and expressing myself, especially with new people, but I think I’ve gotten better. (One co-worker told me after I joined Toastmasters – “When I first met you, you were really shy and you really didn’t speak up too much. But something happened – You seem
like a *real person* now!”). Um…Thanks, I think!

I really admire kids I see now, who understand that it is okay to be smart and to let your abilities show, without being afraid of being accused of cheating or “showing off.” Kids who are confident in their abilities and who have been encouraged by their parents and teachers to develop them.

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