There Are No Shortcuts in Life: The Kindergarten Lesson

There are no shortcuts in life. I learned this lesson the hard way in kindergarten, standing in front of Mrs. Haddock’s testing booth with tears streaming down my face.

Mrs. Haddock’s kindergarten class had all the trappings designed to convince six-year-olds that learning was fun. Bright posters with slogans. Finger paintings lined up for Open House Night. Bean bag chairs in the Reading Lounge. And in the back corner, the crown jewel: the “Video Arcade,” where Number Munchers taught math through cartoon adventures.

I held the high score. Not because I was smart, but because I’d discovered a loophole.

The System Was Easy to Game

Pick answers at random, wait for the screen to flash the correct one, memorize the pattern. Within days, I wasn’t even reading the questions. Just typing sequences. 4, 10, 4, 5.

There was talk of bumping me up a grade.

Reading was simpler still. We never changed books, so I spent an afternoon with the audio version, Alvin and the Chipmunks guiding me through every word. I memorized the whole thing. Then I’d sit in the Reading Lounge and “read” aloud, cover to cover, while my classmates were still sounding out syllables.

I perfected my smile in the mirror for Student of the Month photos. Girls fought over who got to hold my hand at recess. I was six years old and I had already learned that pretending to be smart meant you didn’t have to work very hard.

The Fall

Then one morning, the computers were gone. In their place, a number board.

“Today,” Mrs. Haddock announced, “we’re going to have a test.”

I stood in line, heart thumping slow and deep. Not the quick beat of fear. Something more resigned, like my body already knew what was coming.

The first few questions were easy. Then the final question: “Place these numbers in order from least to greatest.”

I arranged them carefully. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… all the way to 20. And finally, at the end, I placed zero.

Mrs. Haddock’s face fell. “I’m sorry, Jon. Zero comes before all the numbers because it has no value.”

Her words echoed as I walked out of the booth. Has no value. Has no value. Has no value.

And then, in front of everyone, I started to cry.

The Lesson That Took Decades

I wish I could say I stopped gaming systems after kindergarten. I didn’t. The shortcuts got more sophisticated, the stakes got higher, and the falls got harder. But the lesson was always the same, delivered in different costumes across different decades.

Zero comes first because it has no value. And pretending to know something you don’t will eventually land you in a testing booth with nothing but the truth.

The locket always comes back.