Jan 29 2009
My Melancholy Reader Days
Melancholy:
- Grave or even gloomy in character
- Gloom, dullness, great sadness or depression
- Low enthusiasm for activity
- Thoughtful sadness
- Moroseness or wistfulness
My Seventh Grade Teacher maintained an evaluation sheet for each student’s “out loud” reading ability. At the top of MY evaluation sheet was the single word, “Melancholy.” It wasn’t written on a particular line or in a special block or square; it was simply written at the top of the sheet. Melancholy. That described me. What was I to do with that?
First of all, I didn’t know what the hell it meant! My first action was to LOOK IT UP! I found lots of variations on the word’s meaning, even checking in more than one dictionary. We didn’t have internet in 1959. Just the old-fashioned Webster, you know?
I can tell you that my discovery surprised and confused me. “My” teacher had one word to describe me–melancholy–and it didn’t seem like a very good word. I was upset. I was saddened. I became–melancholy!
Teachers can hurt young souls more than help them. Self-fulfilling prophesy, I guess. I wasn’t supposed to see the evaluation sheet–it was the teacher’s private stuff–so I certainly wasn’t about to ask her why or what I should do. I didn’t tell my parents either. Partly because I was embarrassed to be deemed “melancholy” and partly because I thought they would talk to her and she would find out I was peeking at her notes.
Oh, Oh. Then she would have been able to write some other words to describe me. Ummm.
So I lived with being “melancholy” and not understanding why, and that was seventh grade. Things pretty much went down hill from there. (1) The eye exam person said I needed glasses; (2) The hearing test person said I was hard of hearing in my left ear like a 65-year-old, (3) I was caught copying off another student’s paper, and (4) I got in MUCHO trouble for going to a GIRL’S birthday party where there were boys and girls TOGETHER which was NOT PERMITTED by the parochial school I attended.
On the bright side, I was NOT melancholy at the party.
Gosh! Doug,
That school teacher was totally out of sync to have made such a statement.
I guess back in those days, school teachers hardly knew about child psychology. That kind of remark is definitely not positive reinforcement. Obviously detrimental.
You do not reflect any melancholy from the self photograph.