Audre Lorde

In the essay "A New Spelling Of My Name", Audre lorde describes her first experiences with learning to read, write and attend school.  Despite her being legally blind at that age she still uses colorful descriptions of her teachers, classmates and thoughts at that time.   When Audre is put into kindergarten, and is uncomfortable with the assignment, her teacher manipulates the her into following directions by telling her "Imagine that, a big girl like you. Such a shame, I'll have to tell your mother that you wont even try".  This frightens Audre into submission and when she tries to impress the teacher by writing her whole name rather than just the first letter, she is punished again.  Thankfully Audre's mom knows that she is already beyond the learning ability of kindergarten, so she gets her into a first grade class in a Catholic school and encourages the teacher to give spankings if Audre did not follow directions.  The teacher, Mary of Perpetual Help "ran the first grade with an iron hand in the shape of a cross", as described by Lorde.  She split the class into two sections called the Fairies (good students) or the brownies (bad students).   The students could easily end up in the brownies if they did not behave or if they had a hard time learning, and Audre spent most of her time with the brownies because although she could read and write, she had a hard time with numbers.  Both of the teachers that are depicted in this Essay are very harsh and beat down the childrens' self esteem both literally and figuratively.