After reading this in the book, I had a flashback to my own childhood. I was a shy, quiet, girl. I only spoke when spoken to, even though it wasn't because I was taught that. My first grade teacher took my lack of participation in class as an indication that I was slow and dull. At a parent-teacher conference, she expressed to my parents that I was a nice girl, but would always be just average, and not to expect more from me. My dad was absolutely insulted and said to her, "No child of mine is just average!" And, in a step that probably wasn't characteristic of the time period (1970s), my parents came home and told me what she had said. And this stuck with me all through school, as a straight A student in high school, an honors student in college and graduating in the top of my class in graduate school.
The teacher was wrong in making that assumption. She didn't bother to get to know me enough to know that I was an avid reader, and begged my mom to go to the library several times a week. She didn't bother to get to know me enough to know that I loved to write and that I wrote in a diary every day. Her assumption maybe caused me to strive a little harder to be more outgoing and participate. But I already had the academic motivation to do my best. What her comment did was hit me where it hurt the most, at my self-esteem.
I am so grateful that my parents were honest with me back then and didn't shield me from her negative comments. But I have to wonder had I not had supportive parents and my own will, what would have happened to me. I learned early on that words can hurt and that the hurt can last.