At the age of 11, an event occurred that affected Jacobson for the rest of his life. After helping a boy rescue his book bag from a filthy trash bin, he went to school unaware that he had gotten dirt on the back of his legs. When his teacher mentioned the dirt in front of the class, several of the boys made fun of him and led the class in ignoring him for six to eight weeks. He was stunned at the mob mentality, seeing how a few leaders of the class could control the actions of the entire group. Paul Gready writes in "Research in African Literatures": "A childhood experience of bullying and ostracism was something from which Jacobson was 'never to wholly recover."'