The teacher spoke to an engaged group of second graders, who were enjoying the lesson and raising their hands to join in the discussion. “Did you know that two different words can have the same meaning? Those are called ‘synonyms.’ Like ‘frozen’ and ‘icey’? Can you think of other words like that?”
“‘Sick’ and ‘ill’!” one said.
“‘Throw up’ and ‘vomit,’” another giggled.
After many other examples were suggested, our teacher gave us a homework assignment: “I want each of you to think of one word, and write it on the top of your page. Then think of every other word that has the same or similar meaning, and write all those other words on the lines below.”
That evening, I told my father what my assignment was. He said, “That’s easy.” He pulled a copy of Roget’s Thesaurus off a shelf and handed it to me. “This is a thesaurus. It’s used to find synonyms.”
“But I was supposed to come up with the words on my own. Wouldn’t looking up the answers in a book be cheating?” I asked.
“No. That’s what this book is for,” he said. “Some words have more synonyms than others. You should pick words that have a lot of synonyms. Like ‘good’ and ‘bad.’”
I thumbed through the pages until I found “good,” and indeed it had many synonyms.
At the top of my sheet, I wrote, “good.”
Then, with my No. 2 pencil, I listed: “acceptable, excellent, exceptional, favorable, great, marvelous, positive, satisfactory, satisfying, superb, valuable, wonderful, ace, nice, pleasing . . . ” and so forth, until my page was filled.
Of course, because my father had raised an over-achiever, I couldn’t stop with just one word. I pulled out a second sheet, and, at the top, wrote, “bad.” I filled the page with words like “atrocious, awful, dreadful, lousy, sad, unacceptable, imperfect, inferior, junky, abominable, amiss, defective, deficient, dissatisfactory, erroneous, fallacious, faulty . . . ”
Some of the words were new to me. I pondered whether the use of these words would make it too obvious to the teacher that I had just copied these from a thesaurus. Well, no matter. I clearly wasn’t trying to hide it. Perhaps she will see that I’m ahead of the game; wasn’t that going to be the whole purpose of this lesson, anyway? To teach us what a thesaurus is and how to use one?
Back in class the next day, I placed the two sheets of loose-leaf paper side-by-side atop my wooden desk: “Good” and “bad.” The other kids were already proudly holding up their homework pages and sharing what they had come up with. My pages, however, had the most words of anyone’s. I clearly had the most synonyms in the entire class. Other kids noticed my long lists of synonyms and began to attract attention to my desk.
Julie thundered up to me. “You have two!! Give me one! I didn’t do my homework. I don’t have any!”
“No,” I sat meekly. “I did these. I don’t want to cheat.”
“Please, please. You don’t need two! You don’t need all this! You can’t even share?” She bellowed over me.
I wanted her to leave me alone. Reluctantly, I let her take my “good” page. The teacher would see that both pages were written by the same student, wouldn’t she? Wouldn’t it be obvious? Same handwriting, same list length. The teacher would surely know that both lists were mine.
The teacher walked in. She asked if everyone did their homework. Who would like to share first?
Immediately, Julie lifted herself out of her seat and shot up her hand, which was clasping my page of “good” words. She waived the page above her head and shouted, “I have them!! I did my homework! I have all these!”
Me: Crestfallen. Synonyms: dejected, despondent, dispirited . . .
Julie: Shameless. Synonyms: audacious, bold, brash, brazen, unabashed . . .
The teacher approached Julie and took her page — my page. “Wow,” you have so many words! Look at these!” There was pride in her voice for her student who had done such great work. She began to read all the words and write them on the blackboard. My words! Words I doubt Julie could even pronounce much less spell. What would the teacher think when she saw my page? Would she think that I had cheated? That I was, indeed, the “bad” one?
I suddenly felt small. Synonyms: shrunken, diminished, wilted, withered.
Nothing ever came about of it. At the end of the lesson, we all passed all our homework pages to the front of the class, and everyone got a checkmark for participation. The teacher never said anything to me. Did she even notice? If only she knew that I had been bullied, my homework stolen!
In the end, none of it mattered. However, I learned valuable lessons.
- Some people will happily take credit for your hard work because they thrive on praise and need praise, and they are, frankly, greedy. Those people are bullies.
- Some people lie: flat-out, boldly, to your face.
- Just because some loudmouth is waiving a paper above their head doesn’t mean she can recite the content of that page or even tell you anything about it.
It took me a little while, but I learned to stand up for myself. I wouldn’t let the Julies of the world take credit for my work.
In fact, I don’t remember if “Julie” was even that girl’s name. I don’t even remember the teacher’s name. But I remember the thesaurus. The feel of the pages, the lists of words. Beautiful words. Julie may have taken my page, but the words will always be mine.
