paisleypiper's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- your permanent record Your Permanent Record Today I have been wondering what role the concept of having a permanent record played on the development of my conscience. My permanent record started in grade school, modestly, but in middle school it began expanding at an alarming rate. I fell for the permanent record in middle school like I did the spanking machine in kindergarten. When I first started kindergarten, before I was kicked out, parents had the option of signing a form that allowed teachers to spank children. Anyone who misbehaved was immediately sent to the principal�s office where their permanent record was checked for permission to be physically punished. Really bad kids had to go through the spanking machine and no one wanted to be that bad. Although it must have happened to a few of the boys who after returning from the principal�s office could not sit down. When I returned to school, a private school, my mother made me promise to avoid making trouble. But trouble always had a way of seducing me. It is not that I was bully or really an evil child. It is more that I was spirited and bright and had difficulty conforming. I guess I still do. Because I wanted to be �good� and to quit always causing my mother to get calls at work, I was worried about this notion of the permanent record. Would it follow me to high school, to college, �. Would I have to explain it every time I applied for a job? Was there a question, just after the question about being convicted of a felony, that would address the permanent record? I asked me mother �when you look for jobs, do they ask about your permanent record?� My mother, who has a knack for making me paranoid because she seizes every opportunity to force me to conform said �records are the only thing that matters.� In the sixth grade my mental life was completely taken up with John Anderson. I showed up to school early and made my locker into a cross between a campaign office and a shrine to Anderson and actually campaigned for him in the locker room. When some other parents complained that their children received Anderson bumper stickers at school, this incident went on my permanent record. My parents, Reagan fanatics, were horrified. I was grounded from all campaign updates and had to sneak the vote results on my transistor radio, quietly, in my bedroom. In the seventh grade, Sister Mary, one of the old French nuns, asked my classmate and �boyfriend� J. and I to represent the school in a history competition. We were both fully-steeped in some huge second-generation Beatlemania at the time and thought that the Beatles were historical. We wrote a speech, a research paper and made a giant display which included tapes of the Beatles songs and various people talking about how the Beatles shaped how they remembered their past. To Sister Mary this was a terrible thing to do � she had thought that we would merge our two Santa Fe Trail projects, not run off and do original research. Our parents were called, letters were written and lodged in our permanent records. We had detention. It did not matter that we won first place. The focus was on the fact that Sister Mary believed that we understood what we were asked to do and we defied the rules. She asked me, alone in a room with her and a piece of paper where I was to record the event for my permanent record, why my conscience did not bother me for lying. Positive things never went into permanent records. The rule-abiding students seemed unaware of their permanent records. I did plenty of good things and no one ever said �this is going in your permanent record.� In the sixth grade our teachers did one of those social experiments. We were told that who ever drew a slip of paper with an X on it had to be ostracized for a week. As it turned out, the most unpopular girl drew the slip with an X. I was one of a group of three students who talked to her. This did not go on my permanent record, even though I disobeyed instructions from a teacher. For this, we got to have pizza for lunch with the unpopular girl while the entire class of rule-followers had to donate their lunches to a homeless mission and watch us eat. Which was really weird. So records took on a negative connotation in my mind as I quickly went on my way making school history for the largest permanent record of any student not expelled. Sometimes it was only accidental that items were added to my permanent record. I had a pen that I could click and the ball point portion would drop down and then click it again and it would retract. In the fifth grade I was taking it apart instead of paying attention to class and accidentally launched it towards the front of the room. As I watched the little spring sail at a horrific speed towards the teacher, time slowed down. It seemed like it took a full minute for that spring to reach the front of the room and hit my teacher in the forehead. Plenty of time for me to being regretting my interest in the click pen. It kept seeming to me that I had a conscience only when something was heading for my permanent record. I repeated a similar accident in the seventh grade with the rubber bands on my braces. And then there were the endless notes that teachers confiscated. Did the student teacher really mind my cartoon about her? I will never know. I can�t remember what the cartoon was about, but I know it was snatched from my hands and entered into my permanent record. As was my long treatise making fun of ZZ Top which was interpreted as being anti-hillbilly in the eighth grade. At the Catholic grade school, we had two forms of permanent records. The file and the book. And they were parallel structures. Any time I had to �sign the book� that incident went into my permanent record. Signing the book was sort of permanent listing of all of the infractions of all of the students since the school was started. When a student was particularly misbehaved a teacher would say �go sign the book� and that meant that first you had to go to the dean�s office � where all of the books were kept. The current volume was kept open on a large dictionary stand. For younger children, a red velvet colored step stool was available. You had to describe what you did to the dean who would then oversee your entry of it in the book, making certain it was accurately depicted and eliminating any possibility for subterfuge. Anyone who had to go and sign the book knew that news of the bad business went straight to god. By the time I reached the eighth grade, I was rebellious. Outwardly rebellious. Our eighth grade teacher said that our particular class was the most rebellious class she had ever seen. I did some mean things. I hacked into the computer so when other students logged in by entering their names, the screen came back with the line �No its not. Now tell me your real name or I will tell everyone you listen to Perry Como.� That particular day, the fifth grade class used our computers and I made some kids cry. I did not know that the fifth grade was going to use the computers. Nonetheless, this is exactly why no one should ever pull pranks. And I had to spend several afternoons making it up to the fifth graders. I was catching on to the fact that the permanent record would not impact my ability to have a job. But I worried that I would not get into high school with it. So I went to the principal and asked him if I could do anything to remove items from my record. To which he said �your permanent record is just that. If items could be erased then it would not be permanent.� I was admitted to high school, but it felt as though it was just by the skin of my teeth. And I vowed to myself that I would be really good�.. 10:23 p.m. - 2002-10-20 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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