My sense of what it means to be a minority was developed early. By the time I reached the fourth grade, I had been to five elementary schools, so I knew what it meant to be a stranger. Sixth grade was a special year for me, because my social ostracism reached new heights and because I had a wonderful teacher, Mr. Greenberg.

I remember one time, early in the year, when I shyly went up to Mr. Greenberg and asked him if I could go to the bathroom. He was sitting with his feet up on his desk, smoking a cigar, watching the World Series on television and he looked at me very steadily as he replied, "Rosemarie, you can do anything you want to do." I was startled, but took the deeper meaning of his comment so seriously I almost forgot what I had originally gotten up to do.

Being around Mr. Greenberg was a big boost for my self-esteem. Already something of an outcast because I had not grown up with the rest of the kids from kindergarten on, I was also the best student in reading and English, which did not endear me to the girls and in math, which did not endear me to the boys. I was miserable at jumping rope and playing the recorder, and I was the tallest person in the school, taller even then any of the teachers.

My sixth grade year was also special because my class, which was the top-achieving class in a heavily-tracked school, became part of an experiment. Ten very bright students who would have been fifth graders that year were introduced into my sixth grade class. It was as much a social experiment as an educational one. Researchers would come in to the class on a weekly basis, test our academic skills, and ask us personal questions, such as whom we would most like to sit next to.

The result, from our perspective, was a disaster. The distance between 11 and 12 year olds is very great and at that age children can be very cruel. The sixth graders in other classes teased us that we had not even been promoted to sixth grade. The fifth graders in other classes thought that the ten who were placed in our class were being given special treatment.

Initially, it looked like no one would have anything to do with those ten fifth graders. But they soon discovered that I would talk to them, sit with them, wipe their tears, listen to them, study with them. Soon I had a trail of ten chicks who followed me everywhere. As wonderful and sensitive as Mr. Greenberg was, even he could not resist the joke on me. He took to calling me "the mother hen." I don't think any of those ten kids, who continued to follow me about and look to me when we were in junior high school ever appreciated that while I was talking to them, not one of my sixth grade classmates was talking to me.

1/2/98

© Rosemarie E. Falanga, Cy H. Silver