The Eye Test

I attended kindergarten and 1st grade at Reavis Elementary School in Affton (it used to be a few blocks from Lakeshire before it was closed). My sister was going to Seven Holy Founders (a parochial school) at the time and that's where I transferred starting in the 2nd grade. (Details to come).
I should probably mention that I was only 4 years old when I started kindergarten - my mom talked them into letting me start early - I suspect she was really looking forward to getting me out of the house for a few hours every day. And while my age probably contributed to some of my 'school related' issues, it certainly doesn't explain all of them.

Now - I think I've mentioned before that I always suspected most adults were idiots. My experiences at Reavis tended to confirm those suspicions :-)

Here's the first story:
During the first few weeks of school a 'medical dude' in a lab coat came into the classroom with the school nurse, took us aside one at a time, showed us some shapes and asked a bunch of questions about them. I'm not sure if they were testing for eyesight or dyslexia or what, but regardless - it didn't make any sense.
I remember Lab Coat Man rotating a card with a shape on it (like the one I've drawn below) and asking me whether it was right side up, upside down or facing left or right:

Now, how the heck was I supposed to know what direction the shape was facing when I didn't know what it represented??? Any of the 4 sides could have been the top! If it was a kitchen table then the Figure 1 would be 'right side up' and asking which direction it was facing was nonsense. But if it was the letter 'E' with the middle bar missing, then Figure 4 would be 'right side up'. Plus I didn't even know my left from my right yet. Lab Coat Man tried to help out by pointing the appropriate direction, but I still didn't know which side of the shape was what and I changed my mind about that a couple of times during the test.
So, after a couple of (very confusing) minutes Lab Coat Man called the teacher over and they started whispering back and forth. It was obvious that he thought I had some sort of problem and I remember thinking that I was obviously not the one with the problem :-)
Eventually (after some discussion with my parents) they decided to just keep an eye on me. And since I didn't manifest any vision related problems the whole issue just faded away.

But that experience highlights something that affected me all through school: Everything seemed ambiguous. Even something as simple as being told to write my name at the top of a paper presented a series of problems: Ink or pencil? Upper case or mixed case? Block letters or cursive? First name first or last name first? My whole first name or just the initial? Full middle name or initial or nothing?
And telling me that it didn't matter was the worst thing to do. Then I had to analyze the purpose of writing my name on the paper and make a series of decisions without a solid rational basis. It was agonizing! And when I started asking the questions I was accused of being a wise-ass and trying to disrupt the class. (After all, the answers were obvious, right?)
But seeing all the possibilities and asking all the questions (even the 'obvious' ones) is one of the things that makes me so valuable as an engineer...

Isn't it ironic (don'cha think :-) ) that an ability can be so highly valued in the 'real world' and yet be so highly discouraged by the school system? Go figure...