C.S. Lewis: “boys and girls are taught essay-writing…I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays.”
To continue my trend of recording thoughts for posterity, here’s an essay I wrote years ago:
Dimensions, Please
If I told you that I was a Chinese Canadian girl with glasses and braces who had written the Fermat, Cayley, and Euclid math contests, what would you think? If I also said that I play badminton and that I consider anything below 80 percent a disappointing mark, would your mental portrait of me continue along the same path? Don’t deny it; you’re thinking I’m a typical academic-oriented, Asian student who has to learn that life goes beyond academics. (If you weren’t thinking that, you are now.)
The description above is meant to fit a stereotype that could describe many students at ACI. If I add on that I’m a cashier at No Frills, your first impression cracks finely down the middle. I can just as easily say that I’m a French Immersion student who likes skiing and cooking, adding on as an afterthought that I’m pretty comfortable using a power drill. Now your first impression has probably fallen to the floor and been swept to the side.
Quite often, characteristics and behaviours are presumed within the first few minutes of meeting others. Knowing this sometimes makes me fear unwarranted stereotyping. This fear surfaced in French class.
On the second day of grade 9, I was late. I quietly panicked, knowing that I was going to give my new French teacher a solid reason for disliking me. I walked in, facing him just as he was making a speech; he was speaking in English to be sure the class understood.
“Make sure to always be on time because at the beginning of each class, we’re going to do a small activity to get your brains thinking in French.”
As he said this, I made my way along the wall to the closest desk (the nearest one was in the fifth row). After he was done going through all of the rules and regulations, he chuckled and commented that students with higher marks were usually seated nearest to the door while those with the lowest grades tended to be the furthest away from the door. Within a few classes, though, he recognised that our class didn’t fit in with his stereotype and that his theory was nothing but that: a theory.
In the afternoon, I went to French Geography class for the first time. She spoke in English as well to make sure everyone understood her. Out of nowhere, she went up to the board and wrote two numbers: 65 and 75.
“Can you guess what these numbers mean?” she said, looking around at the class.
Nobody answered. She chalked a percentage symbol next to the two numbers.
“How about now?”
Afraid of giving the wrong answer, everybody remained speechless.
“I’ll tell you then,” she said. “This 65 here is the average for a typical class of French Immersion students while this 75 is the usual average for a class of French Extended students.”
I was disheartened. As a French Immersion student, I was going to have to work against this new stereotype when geography was one of my weakest and least liked subjects. Although the French Immersion average peaked at 68 and dipped to 56 throughout the year, I achieved the highest mark, an 87. The definition for a mark of 90 or above is exceptional. I got an award for being less than exceptional.
At least in that case, I could overcome the stereotype once and then be done with the teacher’s assumption. Other common assumptions pop up at intervals through conversations. Usually, they begin with someone speaking to me in a Chinese dialect.
I reply politely, “Sorry, I don’t know Chinese; could you speak in English?”
They look at me in amazement and say, “You don’t speak Chinese?”
“No.”
“But then when you speak to your parents, you speak in…?”
“English.”
When they abruptly switch the topic of conversation, I’m a little relieved since I know they don’t really want to learn that I’m the third generation born in Canada on my dad’s side and that my mom was born in Trinidad. That would lead to all sorts of other questions; I don’t need to dig up the past for every single person I meet.
Yet the past is important, and it can be enlightening. By looking at past report cards, I can easily see whether or not first impressions were broken. One teacher thought I was quiet and shy at first. The next term, she commented on my good sense of humour. When she taught me the next year, the comments in June said that I was neat, bright, and strong-willed. I went from quiet to strong-willed; I’m a strong, silent type? who likes to laugh?
However, sometimes I don’t need coaxing to come out of my shell. In grade 9, I found science easy. I happened to know what others did not, so I became that-smart-aleck-who-knows-the-answer-to-every-question. At first, in the spare time at the end of class, I would explain simple concepts to the girl next to me while the girl sitting in front of us would listen as well. At one point, I had four people trying to ask me four completely different questions at once, at which point my desk neighbour came to my rescue and organized people.
In this case, I showed one aspect of my true personality very quickly, but sometimes you find out you don’t know someone much at all even after a whole year.
Back in geography class, I sat next to an extremely quiet girl. Her group’s culminating presentation, in which they poked fun at the teacher, was highly imaginative. They went back in time and got stranded in the past with one girl transformed into the Canadian Shield. Later, I found out that the quiet girl next to me had written the script, and I realised how hard it is to get to know a quiet person.
It’s hard to know another person, even if they aren’t quiet. Some people believe that I’m naturally reserved all the time even after knowing me for years. For instance, I’ve been involved with the music department for many years, and I was helping out at the end of the last school year. While we were filing sheets of music, we made a small mistake that meant half an hour of effort was virtually wasted.
With my back to the door, I let out some of my frustration: “Argh!”
Just then, a music teacher came in and muttered, “The things you think you’ll never hear Melinda say…”
Even after knowing me for nearly three years, I still surprised this teacher, even though I hadn’t been a flimsy cardboard cut-out to him. In his head now, there is another dimension to me. In his mind, I’ve moved even further away from that initial impression.
First impressions are snapshots; they are one-dimensional portraits affected by mood. In our minds, these pictures never go away, and they become part of a larger, more life-like panorama. Then, pictures become three-dimensional, complex characters. After a while, labels no longer seem adequate. People become multi-dimensional; that first dimension is cleverly worked in so that it is unrecognisable. I aspire to be a person in your mind. I’m not worrying about breaking your first impression; I just want to add dimensions.
tl;dr: There’s a very low chance you’ll want to read all of this, even with the 100% and all. First impressions are formed all the time, but let’s strive for seeing multiple dimensions.
