Mrs. Sanford was a teacher. Those days were busy for her as she had to select some kids from her class for the school talent show. She needed to choose one student for solo singing, a group of students for a group song, one solo dance and a group dance performance, and one student for a speech.
Even before she saw what the kids had prepared, she had already decided who she would select for each performance. She had some favorite students in her class who were clever. She didn't have to try extra hard to teach them because those students understood things at once. She liked them and considered them good students.
Meanwhile, other students couldn't understand what she taught immediately. She considered them lazy students as they didn't get enough marks in exams and made her look like a bad teacher. She disliked those who didn't talk or express themselves, as it was hard for her to understand those students. She didn't care whether they were introverts or whether they had social anxiety or other issues. She also didn't care whether those students had problems at home. All she cared about was how smart and fast the kids were and how good their marks were.
When Mrs. Sanford went to the classroom, one of her favorite students opened the door for her to enter the class with a big smile. She gave the girl a big smile in return. Then she looked around the classroom and saw her favorite faces and non-favorite faces. She wished those introverted, less clever, mysterious kids were not in her classroom. In her mind, introverted kids were lazy and not smart too. So she didn't like them, even though they were not troublemakers.
Mrs. Sanford decided to get speeches from the whole class to select the best one. She called each student's name one by one. She carefully listened to her favorite students' speeches and didn't pay much attention to the others. According to her, those kids never tried to be better and were always useless. So she didn't bother to listen to them and quickly asked them to stop their speeches. Her favorite students got a few more chances when they made mistakes. But if another student made a mistake, their speech was over. Mrs. Sanford didn't want to waste time on what she considered useless kids.
Mrs. Sanford chose Layla Smith for the speech. Layla was one of the good students in the class. She was someone who got high marks on exams. So Mrs. Sanford was happy to choose her.
"She chose Layla," Rosie said.
"Not a surprise. She's one of her favorites. It's actually useless for us to even try to win something," Daisy replied.
Then Mrs. Sanford asked all the students to gather in the school hall. She needed to select some for dance. She wished she only had to select her favorites, but she wasn't supposed to do that. She thought it was stupid to waste time on those lazy students as they were never going to be good.
As not all the students could dance, there were only a few competing for dancing. Mrs. Sanford chose Talia Hodge for solo dance and Carla Hart, Layla Smith, and Angela Cardenas for group dance.
"Why did she choose Layla for two performances? That's not fair," Kitty complained.
"Hayley was also great. I never thought she could dance. But Mrs. Sanford didn't choose her even for the group dance," Lottie said.
Then it was time to choose students for singing, both solo and group. Most of the students had already lost their confidence as they saw how Mrs. Sanford had chosen students for other performances. It felt like they didn't have any chance at all because they were labeled as useless in their teacher's mind.
"Okay, students. It's time to choose students for singing. Now those who are prepared for that, come and do your singing," Mrs. Sanford said. She had already decided who would be selected in her mind.
Those who were ready for singing came to the front of the class one by one and did their singing. Some didn't even get a chance to sing the second part of the song. Some were already nervous and anxious, thinking about how Mrs. Sanford was going to treat them. So they weren't able to sing properly.
It was obvious to the whole class that Abby McGowan was the best. But sadly, she wasn't one of Mrs. Sanford's favorites. Abby wasn't the favorite of any teacher as she was an introvert and silent. Everyone waited to see who would be chosen by Mrs. Sanford for the singing performance.
"Suzanne, what happened to your voice today?" Mrs. Sanford asked Suzanne because she was the one Mrs. Sanford wanted to select for solo singing.
"Not sure, ma'am. Something happened," Suzanne said.
"Maybe we should do the selection again next day because Suzanne's throat is not good today," Mrs. Sanford said, surprising everyone.
Everyone knew what was going to happen, so they looked at Abby with sympathy. Abby already felt nervous about facing the next day as she had given her everything today for the selection. She had already lost her confidence, feeling that no matter how hard she worked, she wasn't going to win anything. Because her entire life, everyone had labeled her as an unclever, useless student. And the reason for that was she was silent because she was an introvert.
The next day, Mrs. Sanford did the selection for singing again. Suzanne was selected for both solo and group singing, and Abby got nothing. Abby lost the only chance she had to show her talent to someone in her school life, and she couldn't do anything about it. She felt embarrassed about herself for even trying, knowing there was no chance for her in this school.
