Separation

In 1956, the L.A. City School system determined that for the well being of twins everywhere, that they should be separated in the classroom. This was, surely, to ensure the individuality and independence of the twins and followed brilliant self-help works by Dr. Spock and others. For anyone reading this who may be from later generations, this was before there was a such thing as "quads," and before triplets were an every day occurance. In the fifties, twins were actually rare.

One day as my twin and I were enjoying first grade coloring, printing, and Dick and Jane, I saw Mrs. Black, the school principal, waltz into our classroom in her sensible yet plain black dress and her proper black pumps and hold an intense conversation with our teacher. Being the ever observant child that I was, and keeping an ever watchful eye on the location of my twin across the room from me, I soon realized that the conversation involved me and my other half. The tension began to build inside of me as I caught on that something very big was about to happen. Before I fully comprehended that they were about to remove him from the classroom altogether, and before he could lift his crayon from the cowboys and indians he had just created, I sprang into action to save my brother from being stolen from me and from where he belonged. He began to cry and struggle to break free from the arms that were removing him from his nursery-sized chair, just as I reached Mrs. Black's skirts. I was in tears and struggled to pull my twin from her grasp. I was unsuccessful and both of us knew we had lost the battle as our arms reached out for each other and Bobby was taken from the classroom.

Now, would it have hurt Mrs. Black, or my teacher, to have mentioned their wretched little scheme to our mother who might have warned her little children that we were to be separated and placed in different classrooms? After all, we had never been separated before--we were still sleeping in the same crib for Heaven's sake! We went to the doctor together for our penicillen shots, watched Romper Room and Engineer Bill together every day, splashed in rain puddles together, and were walking the 1/4 mile to school together--alone.

I still remember how terrified I was--and confused. For all I knew, I would never see my brother again. I don't really know how my brother was feeling at the moment, but I knew that school was not a happy place and my future attitudes toward my education began to take shape that day. And we were never in the same class together again.

So here we are 50 years later, and on this very day I have driven past several schools where anarchy reigns. Students have taken to the streets in protest of what they do not understand waving flags of another country and burning our own. Somehow I can't help but wonder if perhaps the misguided pop-psych thought of the day back in 1956 might have been okay afterall?