The Whisper

As I read the article in the Tribal College Journal entitled “Ignorance, is it Bliss?” by Mary Annette Pember, I was horrified to feel the “sting” of an experience that I once had—an experience that wasn’t so long ago. That sting was a whisper, unbeknown to me, that followed me throughout my adult life. But because the writer in the article was so clear in her thoughts and writing, I began to put some pieces together of a long-forgotten puzzle of my own life.

It all began in the first grade. This, I must say now, is a very impressionable time for a young child of six years old. I was so excited to start the first grade. I remember, as most children do, that my mother walked me to school on the first day of class. She was very careful to show me all the stop signs on our five-block walk to Emerson Grade School. She admonished me to never talk to strangers on my way to and from class. I promised her that I would be very careful.

This is when my mother introduced me to my first grade teacher, Mrs. Harmon.

She told me that the rest of the family had this teacher, and I was just following tradition. So I quickly took my seat behind my best friend, Angela. We were both so excited!

It seemed in a short period of time, Mrs. Harmon separated Angela and me. She moved Angela in what was called the “high” group and me to the “low” group. Being only six years old, I didn’t understand this form of thinking. I immediately thought to myself, “I must not be as smart as my friend is!”

Mrs. Harmon would constantly criticize the “low” group. The rest of the class would laugh at us to no end. It seemed as if no one wanted to play with us out on the playground, or in gym. We would constantly get set aside. Even for the Christmas play, we were the last to perform. It seemed as if everyone laughed at us and said, “Oh how cute, they barely said anything.” That is how Mrs. Harmon set us up!

I remember Mrs. Harmon teaching me for the first time how to hold a pencil. She would change my pencil to my left hand. (Which was very strange, since most teachers change it to the right?) She would tape my right hand to the desk, or hit me with a ruler if she saw me writing with the wrong hand.

As I was learning to read, I remember Mrs. Harmon would squeeze my cheeks so hard that my father one night at the dinner table asked me, “Why do you have bruises on your face?”

I held my head in shame and told him, as only a little child could, that I didn’t say the right words when I was reading.

As one of those “stings” in life, I remember as a first grade student that this teacher would not let me go out to the playground to play with the rest of the children. She would watch me like a hawk! One time I really had to go to the restroom. So I raised my hand to go and she would not let me. I was getting sick with pain, and finally there was the biggest, most embarrassing mess all over me.

The rest of the children laughed and laughed as she said, “Look what Jayni has done now!” She made them move their desks to one side of the room as if I had a plague, and let me sit there until class let out.

Then she grabbed and dragged me to the coat room in which she started stripping me down to nothing. She took off my tights and panties and threw them away.

I obviously was late getting home. My mother was so upset when she saw me with part of my clothes gone. It was a cold winter day and I had no socks on. My legs and feet were bare with only my shoes. I told my mother that Mrs. Harmon would not let me go to the restroom, and she took my clothes. It was then that my mother told my father that she wanted something done.

Shortly after that, I noticed that Mrs. Harmon never told me no, and I got to finally go out for recess, but I remained in the “low” group for the rest of the year.

When Angela’s parents came to pick her up from school one day, Mrs. Harmon told them, in front of both of us, that I was not a smart child. “Some children are just born that way,” she said.

At the end of the year, Mrs. Harmon told my parents that I would never amount to anything, that I just wasn’t smart, but I was pretty enough to marry someone, and that would be all.

When I was older, I read in the newspaper that Mrs. Harmon died. The article said that she was once a nun and had worked at a boarding school. I read that she met her husband and left the convent and they started their life together in Butte, MT.

It is abhorrent how experiences like that follow you throughout life. “Ignorance is not always bliss!” All through my twenties, thirties, and forties, I wished so hard that I was smart enough to go to college. That was always my dream. But a little voice would always whisper inside my head…I just wasn’t smart enough!

Jayni Anderson is an enrolled Assiniboine Indian. When she was nine months old, she was adopted away from her tribe. She is just now learning about her ancestral culture and language, and she is very proud of her heritage. She says, “When I found out for the first time about my ancestral heritage it made me feel whole.”

When she wrote this memoir, she was a freshman at Fort Peck Community College (Poplar, MT). She began attending the tribal college when she was 53 years old. She hopes to study forensic science and law; she is currently on a Native research team and an algae bio-fuel research team.

“I would like to thank Fort Peck Community College for being there when I needed them the most,” she says. “I am very happy that I am able to learn and start my process on my educational journey.”

You can read Mary Annette Pember’s story, “Ignorance, is it Bliss?” online at http://www.tribalcollegejournal.org/archives/7847