My Teacher's Mistake

Have you ever known beyond a shadow of a doubt that something was true, only to be told by an authority figure that you were wrong? While I would be exaggerating if I were to claim that this event damaged me emotionally, or left a permanent scar upon my psyche, it must have had a significant impact on me, or it would not seem so fresh in my mind more than forty years later.

I think I was in first grade at the time, and the subject of the lesson was countries. The teacher asked us to name some countries that we knew of. Immediately my hand was in the air, waving eagerly in the hopes that the teacher would call on me before someone else gave the answer I was thinking of. I do not remember what answers were given by the other children - maybe France, England, Russia, the United States - but as far as I can recall, all of their answers were accepted by the teacher as correct. Finally the teacher called on me, and I eagerly named the country I knew about. "Pennsylvania is a state, not a country," my teacher corrected, and then, leaving me confused and deflated, called on another child to give an answer.

I do not know if I would have been able to express my bewilderment to my teacher, even if she had given me time to do so. I understand now, of course, that she probably felt it best not to dwell on a child's wrong answer. She must have assumed that I routinely accepted her correction without question. She could not possibly have known that I remained convinced in my mind that it was she, and not I, who was mistaken. She never gave me the chance to explain how I knew with absolute certainty that Pennsylvania was a country. I never had the opportunity to enlighten her by telling how every summer my family would go to the country for a week or two, and just that past summer our country vacation had been in Pennsylvania.