dovewithscales:

maculategiraffe:

maculategiraffe:

I have a very vivid memory of sitting in a first grade classroom (first grade was my first actual classroom because my mom homeschooled me for kindergarten) thinking “I am literally going to die, I can’t live one more minute without reading a story, but I’ve already gotten my book confiscated for peeking at it during class and I have no backup book and I’m going to die” and then thinking in a burst of divine inspiration “WHAT IF I TELL MYSELF A STORY INSIDE MY HEAD.  THEY CAN’T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME.  PHYSICALLY THEY CANNOT.”

they could not

But then when I was in second grade (at a different school, because I told my mom I wished I could die so I didn’t have to go to school any more and it alarmed her so much she got me sent to a Montessori-influenced magnet school instead) we had spelling “pre tests” on Mondays where we were given (out loud) a big long list of words to write down, all on a theme (like say “trees”) and ranging in difficulty from simple (“leaf”) to complex (“deciduous”), and depending on how many you spelled right, your spelling words to study for the week were either the simplest set, the medium set, or the most complex set.

Great system, right? Except that I was such an insufferable little bookworm I routinely got them ALL right, which resulted in me being excused from spelling most weeks and told to write a story instead, which is really how it all began, because until then I hadn’t written anything down.

Oppression may stimulate the imagination but nurture and encouragement are where it’s AT

I feel like this story is important.