In the midst of all of this, there came a vivid example of the kind of thing we say in school that makes no sense, that only bewilders and confuses the thoughtful child who tries to make sense of it.

The teacher, whose specialty, by the way, was English, had told these children that a verb is a word of action -- which is not always true. One of the words she asked was "dream." She was thinking of the noun and apparently did not remember that "dream" can as easily be a verb. One little boy, making a pure guess, said it was a verb. Here the teacher, to be helpful, contributed one of those "explanations" that are so much more hindrance than help. She said, "But a verb has to have action; can you give me a sentence, using 'dream', that has action?" The child thought a bit, and said, "I had a dream about the Trojan War."

Now it's pretty had to get much more action that that. But the teacher told him he was wrong, and he sat silent, with an utterly baffled and frightened expression on his face. She was so busy thinking about what she wanted him to say, she was so obsessed with that right answer hidden in her mind, that she could not think about what he was really saying and thinking, could not see that his reasoning was logical and that the mistake was not his, but hers.