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in the fall, and the teacher used to call on me to read, particularly when visitors visited the class, as if she'd taught me to read.

And by the way, I was aware even then that this was not quite the truth, you know. But she was giving the principal or the other people the impression that I was reading as well as I was reading because she taught me. Well, I knew damn well that she hadn't taught me-- you know, that I was reading because I'd been taught in Panama.

Brennan, one of my friends, in class, used to get very angry, and while I was in the front of the room reading, he would be doing one of these, meaning that we were going to have to fight, because he didn't like the idea of --

-- let me describe this gesture here. You're putting your fists up --

-- to my eyes.

To your eyes, and that's what Brennan was doing.

Yes, Brennan who was Irish and full of energy and what not, but who had difficulty reading, was always angry. And I don't know why the teacher wasn't aware of the fact that she was really putting me on the spot, by doing it. But I guess she was concerned with her own -- you know, status problems, -- and was totally insensitive to the fact that in putting me on the reading spot, she was interfering with my relationship with my friends and classmates.

Now, the way you've just described this, she was most interested in her status relative to the principle or the other teachers?

Or visitors.