Charles by Shirley Jackson

Charles is the story of a five years old boy named Laurie going for the first time to kindergarten. When he came home, after his first day of school, his parents asked him about school and if he had learnt something. He asked roughly that he had not learnt anything and that the teacher had spanked a boy for being fresh. His parents wanted to know the boy´s name and Laurie said it was Charles.

The following day Laurie told his parents that Charles had been bad again and had hit the teacher. The third day, Charles bounced a see-saw onto the head of a little girl. The rest of the week Charles´s behaviour had been even worse.

Laurie´s parents reflected on his behaviour, his toughness and bad grammar, seeing Charles as a bad influence to their son. They even thought of kindergarten being unsettling to him, but they just waited for him to come from school and tell them the news about Charles.

Charles´s behaviour was the same for a couple of weeks, yelling during story hour, hitting a boy in the stomach, kicking a teacher´s friend, and so on. However, during the third and four weeks Charles changed. Laurie told his parents that Charles had been so good that the teacher gave him an apple, and that he had been the teacher´s helper. Then things went back to normal, Charles told a girl to say a word, she said it and the teacher washed Charles´s mouth out with soup.

Laurie´s parents missed the first P.T. A meeting ( parent-teacher association ), but Laurie´s mum went to the second one, hoping to find Charles´s mother there. Although she scanned every face trying to find “the one” looking haggard, she could not find her. In addition, nobody mentioned Charles at the meeting. After the meeting she looked for Laurie´s teacher and she told her that Laurie liked kindergarten because he talked about it all the time. The teacher said that they had had a little trouble adjusting the first weeks, but now he was a helper, with occasional lapses. Laurie´s mum said that her son adjusted quickly but she added that she supposed it was Charles´s influence this time. “Charles?” asked the teacher, we don´t have any Charles in the kindergarten.”

This short story should be useful for parents as a way of reflection about their children misbehaviour. There is a trend nowadays to blame classroom mates at school or teachers, avoiding the real problems children have at home.

QueenV.