When I was in the third grade, my teacher, Mrs. Everett, gave the class an assignment: Draw a map of the United States on a piece of poster board. Mrs. Everett gave one simple instruction: “You can look at a map of the U.S. to help you, but I don’t want you to trace it. I want you to draw it by yourselves.”
Later on, I overheard a few of my classmates talking about their maps, and how they were going to trace it. “But you can’t trace it,” I said. “Mrs. Everett said so.” They laughed at me and said that there was no way she would know if you traced it, and besides, everyone was going to trace it. Armed with this new knowledge, I set out to trace my map.
I had my mom buy me a piece of poster board, and I got out an atlas. My plan was rather ingenious for a third grader: I would trace the map in the atlas onto a piece of tracing paper, cut it out, and trace the outline onto the poster board. I was all set to get to work when my mom caught wind of my idea. “You aren’t tracing your map,” my mom said. “But all the other kids are,” I protested. “I don’t care. Mrs. Everett said you couldn’t trace it, so you aren’t going to trace it. If you do, its cheating, and you won’t get anywhere by cheating.” I tried to argue, but to no avail. I resigned to drawing it by hand.
I can’t draw now, and I certainly could not draw then. My first attempt at hand drawing the USA more closely resembled Australia. I had my mom go to the store and buy more poster board. My second attempt looked less like Australia, but still bore no resemblance to the US. My third attempt was better than the first two, but still awful. My fourth was not much better. Finally, on my fifth try, I finally had something that looked like the good ol’ US of A. It still sucked, but if you looked at it, you could sort of tell what it was supposed to be, which was better than could be said for the first four I drew.
The next day, I took my map with me to school. At my bus stop, the sixth graders looked at my drawing and thought it looked like a pregnant basset hound, a really deformed dairy cow, or a legless giraffe. But not the USA. I started to worry that my drawing would be much worse than those of my classmates who had traced it. When I walked into my classroom, my worries were validated. I saw two dozen crisply drawn maps, obviously traced, but none that looked like mine. I was mortified, and quickly rolled up the poster board so no one could see mine.
When time for Social Studies rolled around, we each had to go to the front of the class and present our maps. One by one, my classmates presented their perfectly drawn maps. Mrs. Everett would ask each kid if he or she had traced it, and each one replied, “No Mrs. Everett.” One kid even denied tracing his map, despite the fact that his map was drawn on tracing paper, which he then taped to his poster board.
Finally, I got up there and presented my map. I heard the snickers at my pregnant basset hound before I even reached the front. Feeling the need to justify such a poor drawing, I made up an excuse: “I had a much better map, but my mom spilled coffee all over it and I had to do this one really fast.” They still laughed, and I returned to my seat with my head down.
As the class broke for lunch, Mrs. Everett asked me to stay behind. “Michael, did your mom really spill coffee on your map?” she asked. “No,” I replied, sheepishly. “It’s just that all the other kids traced their maps, and I didn’t because you said we couldn’t, and mine is really bad compared to theirs.” “Michael," she said, "I know that a lot of other students traced their maps, and that was wrong. I am very proud of you for following directions and doing it all by yourself. You shouldn’t feel like you have to make excuses for doing the right thing.” Feeling much better about myself, I took off for lunch. I knew that doing the right thing, following directions while all the other kids cheated would pay off when we got our grades, right?
Wrong. The bitch gave me a C.
