Detached thought was a survival mechanism that I learned in order to not be too emotionally traumatized by the incessant bickering that finally lead to the divorce of my parents when I was four years old. It was a fortunate choice of mechanisms as it ultimately lead to other manifestations. There were a great deal of comic books in the possession of many of the children with whom I played. These comics were fascinating to me and I purveyed them at every opportunity. It was immediately obvious to me however that I was getting only half the story from the pictures and that the other half was denied to me by my inability to read the words. Fortuitously I discovered a book that taught the letters of the alphabet phonetically with pictures (A is for Apple {picture}, B is for Ball {picture}...). I taught myself to read and started to read the comics to my friends.
My first day in school in grade one I recall with a certain amusement. No sooner had we sat down than we were handed out a book, a book we were told that would be our reader for the rest of the year. We would be spending an entire year learning to read this book. The teacher finished her little lecture explaining how we would be taught, to discover my hand raised. "Yes," she said looking at her class list, "Peter."
"I finished the book." I said to her dumbfounded look.
She stared at me a moment, not sure what to do, then said, "Come up here." At my approach she pulled out a thick textbook from her desk, a big one with small print, the teachers textbook. She opened it to a page randomly and pointed to a paragraph and said, "Read that."
So I did. I did so without any hesitation or stuttering and with near perfect dictation, sounding out as I went the few words that I did not recognize. When I finished she just stared at me for a while, figuring out what to do with me. Finally she pronounced my sentence, "From now on, from nine till noon during reading period, you shall go to the library to read."
And that was that. The beginning of the end for me as I discovered that I did not have to do any work. The librarians of course had no idea what it was that they were supposed to do with me and so they did nothing. I was left alone to read what I wanted, when I wanted. I quickly discovered that in fact I could spend the entire day at the library and no one would say a word.
My earliest recollection of television was a Mercury capsule splashdown. From as early as I can remember I was fascinated by the space program and in fact desired nothing but to be an astronaut someday. I logically therefore asked the librarian on the first day if there were any books about rocket ships and such. I was directed to the science fiction section where there was a large shelf of it. I thanked the librarian and grabbed the first book on the left, sat down, and started reading. One by one I read every book on the shelf and when I ran out, I requested and got a change of schools, so that I could have a new shelf.
Thusly I learned that I did not need to be taught, indeed I learned to reject teaching when in subsequent schools they attempted to force me to sit through classes that were deathly boring. They succeeded only partially as I learned to recruit to my cause the librarians in whichever school I found myself. It was difficult for them to argue with me when it was plainly evident that I already knew the material they were trying to teach me. I passed whatever exams were given me with flying colors, simply by reading articles in an encyclopedia. Argue they did however because it was unseemly that one child should scorn their system, lord knows I might inspire rebellion in the other children. I might somehow violate their precious notion that all children are entitled to an equal education, even if that means an equally bad one, or that a gifted child be restrained so as to be equal.
Quickly then I became a 'problem child', rejecting everything that any authority figure would tell me unless they could explain it to me to my satisfaction. Few adults however will take the time to explain themselves to a 'problem child'. I maintain to this day that I learned nothing in school other than some math, math that I believe I would have learned on my own in short order anyway. I assert that school was an absolute and utter waste of over a decade of my life, and that if it taught me anything, it was to be profoundly dissatisfied with the world the way it is.
Ultimately, as soon as I thought I could get away with it, I dropped out of school. It was perhaps unfortunate, but at the time inevitable.