Everything I needed to know about prejudice I learned in the first grade.My mom said I was lucky to have been assigned to the class as the teacher was retiring the next year and had a stellar reputation.All I remember was a year of being told I was “stupid” even though I was in the accelerated reading group.My crime was to pick up things with my left hand. That, in the teacher’s estimation, was a sign of stupidity.She finally became so frustrated with my desire to pick up scissors and pencils with my left hand that she announced if I kept doing it I would get swatted.And swat she did. Every time she spotted me with either pencil or scissors in my left hand she’d rap my knuckles with a ruler.She finally broke my “bad habit” on the day a photographer from the Roseville newspaper was coming to class.