So there I was, an 11th grader at Clarke Central, the newly minted merging of Athens High (the white school) and Burney-Harris High (the black school). Sitting in an English class that was boring me to tears. The teacher, whom to me was a boring old lady was in reality probably 20 years younger than my current age. She handed out an assignment to the class. Write a poem that may or may not rhyme about something in this class that had an impression on you.
My impression of the class and the teacher led me to write the following:
I can see without looking,
While you look without seeing.
I can know without knowledge,
While you have knowledge but don’t know.
I know the course of nature,
While you know only what’s taught.
You have the curse of progression,
While I have the gift of thought.
I turned in my poem which apparently pissed off the teacher and I suppose it should have. She gave me a C, thereby quashing my budding development as a poet.
I never learned much in high school outside of 9 ball and 8 ball at Gandy’s Recreation Center. That’s where I spent a significant amount of the school day so it was solely my fault. I learned a lot more after high school in the US Army, at UGA and graduate school. But the one lesson I learned at Clarke Central was in that English class and the lesson was that almost everything depends on perspective.