The swings

 

must. must. must.

Our school had just got swings.

Naturally, we were all excited. So excited that we raced outside BEFORE the bell to get to them.

We all got in trouble.

My punishment was to write 100 times:

I must not leave class before the bell.

One hundred times.

I suspect this may be why I get writers' cramp.

But somewhere around the halfway mark, something else happened.

I started questioning the word must.

Must.

What a weird word.

I stopped to puzzle over it. Must. Must. Must.

Why must I?

Who decided I must?

And why did repeating a word over and over make it look increasingly strange?

I had to hurry, though. The stupid bus was coming, and there would be no swings for me that day.

Looking back, there is more to that classroom memory than a punishment and a funny word.

It was 1974. Indigenous children were coming into the public school system, and there were all kinds of issues playing out around us. I didn't understand the bigger picture at the time. I was a kid. I thought what I saw was just the way things were.

My teacher was mean and racist. He used the strap, and Indigenous children were failed by a system that was supposed to educate them. I didn't have the language or understanding to make sense of all of that then.

I do now.

I was fortunate enough not to get strapped myself. I was a girl, and that made a difference. But I wasn't exactly a model student, either. I swore, and my teacher sent me into the hallway.

The funny thing is, I liked it out there.

I was actually trying to get kicked out of school, but he wouldn't do it.

Perhaps I had already begun questioning authority, even if I couldn't have explained it that way. I knew I didn't like being told what to do simply because someone had the power to tell me.

And there I was, sitting in the hallway, being punished for swearing, while the classroom carried on without me.

I didn't know then how much I didn't know. I couldn't see the full picture of what was happening to Indigenous children, or understand how racism and unequal treatment could shape a child's entire experience of school.

But I remember.

And I still find myself returning to that little word.

Must.

Must we accept everything we're told?

Must we assume that the person in charge is right?

Must we keep repeating the same things simply because that's how they've always been done?

Apparently, even in Grade 5, I had questions.

I just hadn't learned how to write them down yet.