Level Three. Factually.
Level Three – Factually.
By Michelle Lloyd.
R V was used to being able to answer questions at school. He could and would often be first to put up his hand in class, he even helped explain some of the lessons when he saw anyone struggling. He was used to it. He liked to do it. That was totally R V.
It had been difficult, at times, for R V to cope with the attention that his skill had gotten him at school. He had learnt that talking about his fears could alleviate them. Whenever he felt that maybe he was at the focus of too much attention or that he was not able to do as well as he could because of commitments to the class, then he had learnt that talking to the teacher or to two of his closest allies could be the means of solving his problem.
R V had become definite about this route to lessening his fears and he had also learnt that facts were something on which he could base his life. Facts were something that he could be sure of and they were the basis of how he helped others find out how to solve their class problems. Facts fast became the focus of R V’s life. If anyone wanted to know a fact then R V would often have the one to share with them.
Share would R V facts at school, outside and at home. It had started to slowly become a bit of an awkward habit to have. It was quite difficult to hear about certain facts at specific times and R V found this to be particularly an issue when he decided that a need to know fact was on digestion. Did his parents and their dinner guest know that everyone swallowed air while taking in their nutritional intake and that consequently each of their guts contained gas, the kind of gas also known to at some point later be a releasing of wind, also known as flatulence. Despite both his parents eagerness to keep his fact awareness speech quiet, it was that R V continued to inform them and their dinner guest of exactly what he knew on the trapped wind category of his fact knowledge. While this was quite interesting, R V’s parents tried to tell him he may know the facts but they were not at all appropriate for the dinner table.
Factually speaking became a much loved expression of R V and he used it whenever he saw a look of unease cross his parents or an adult’s face. If you knew the fact then R V thought he was at liberty to talk about it because factually speaking one may need to know about it.
Facts were useful, R V’s parents tried to tell him, but there often was a place and time for everything. R V found this fact slightly dubious. It was when on one occasion he decided to talk about a little well known fact during his class that another student thought he had heard the opposite about it, this turned into a fact on fact debate and the teacher had to insist that it stop. The teacher told everyone that it was inappropriate to confuse the issue and then she tried to tell R V that knowing facts was not always a priority, it was how you used what you knew that could be the most useful skill to have.
Eventually and slightly reluctantly R V found out that factually speaking could be a useful trait to have but how he used the facts could be even more important. Facts were a part of R V’s life and that he could not imagine differently but he had to confess that it was much easier to tell people about his fact knowledge when they were ready to hear about them.