FOURTH GRADE SING

The last line of the song went like this:

After three years of undistinguished Catholic schooling, we come to my fourth year. Up to this point I’d been doing well, being put in the best reading group, the Bluebirds, always doing all of my homework, everything going smoothly with school. And then, I had my first encounter with a nun from The Twilight Zone, or perhaps The Outer Limits.

This particular nun—I won’t give her name. Let’s call her Sister F. Sister F had a particular physical problem. She told us that she had calcium deposits building up on her knees. This explained why her knees didn’t flex. In addition to that, she stood bent over at the waist. To walk, she pitched herself forward off-balance to get moving, and then rocked from side to side to keep the momentum going. Her travel down the hallway resembled a penguin with sciatica. And this was a Franciscan nun, with the full habit, so I don’t make the association with penguins lightly.

Sister F was one of those nuns who had obviously been sent to us as a punishment for her sins. I have this theory that, to reward nuns in those days, they sent them to Puerto Rico, or to another very Catholic location, where they were revered by every devout Catholic they encountered. Likewise, nuns from other countries were sent to the United States, where they were looked upon as cute little foreigners—just a little bit of the racism of the Old Time Religion. If the American nuns ever did anything wrong, or perhaps just because they needed to be taught a lesson, they were sent back to the U.S. and were forced to teach in Catholic grade schools where the American students did not revere all nuns as saints. This was the situation at my school. And Sr. F, often compared us—unfavorably—to the students she had had in Puerto Rico, who were so much better students than we were.

Sr. F's big thing was Music, and she would always get the eighth grade boys—the demigods of the Catholic grade school pantheon—to carry her portable chord organ from classroom to classroom. In those days, we sat in the same room all day, and only the teachers moved from place to place. And so, Sr. F, to do her music thing in another room, would have the eighth grade boys carry her organ through the hallway. That is, incidentally, another phrase, like “lay teachers,” that I didn't find amusing until years later, when puberty kicked in.

One day, Sr. F had a brilliant idea: during our "music" class for the next several days, each of us would have to sing a solo. We would stand up straight by our desks, hold our songbooks high, and sing. Now, it has been said by enlightened educators that everyone can sing, but since some of us are told that we can't, or begin to think we can't sing for some reason, that’s why we don't. That’s what happened to me. The first day of this assignment, I was one of those who had to stand up and sing this stupid little song while she played along on her organ. The song was about two boys, Bobby and Billy, who were playing outside when their mother called to them to come into the house. It ended with the words, "Bobby! Billy! Time to end your game." It's burned into my memory.

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© 2004
Stephen A. Schrum

After calling on a few kids behind me in my row, she called on me. I stood up. Straight. Songbook in shaking hands. My face red from the absolute terror caused by terminal shyness. After I had waited for what seemed to be an eternity (what I imagine purgatory was supposed to have been like), she began to play the introduction. I avoided looking at the forty or so boys and girls all staring at me. When she cued me with a quick spastic nod at the end of the introduction, I began to sing, in a high falsetto voice, sounding like a medieval castrato or a BeeGees wanna-be.

Somehow I got through the whole thing. And when I finished, and as I was about to sit down, I looked over at one of my classmates, and he was pointing at me and laughing. My face turned even redder and I sat down, totally embarrassed and utterly ashamed of my performance. I sat there and I cried, as a result of that particular exercise. I should add that, although several other kids in my row sang that day, the exercise was never repeated, and in fact I was one of the few who actually had to do it.

So that's why I never sing in public. After years of making speeches and presentations at national and international conferences, after teaching hundreds of students, and after being onstage as an actor in numerous plays, I have no problem getting in front of people to read, to teach or to perform. But I will not sing. I am still too self-conscious from the experience that I had when I was ten years old. I sometimes wonder if that nun, who made me sing that stupid song so many years ago, if she had known the impact it would have on me, would she still have done it? And isn't that part of being a teacher, or a parent, being aware of the influence you can have on young minds and making certain that the influence you have on them is positive, caring and nurturing? That particular incident had a profound effect on me. It prevented me from wanting to sing, from being able to sing without being extremely self-conscious, and I wonder if that nun ever realized that she scarred me for life. How fragile a child's ego can be, and how easily someone can do permanent harm. Sr. F didn't know that, or didn't care. She ruined me in that one respect. And I can never, ever forgive her for that.