My first impression of my second grade teacher had to do with her hair. Her hair was set . . . as in, she went to the salon once a week and they worked some kind of voodoo to make her hair not move and somehow not stink for the whole week. Her specific set was something not quite wide enough to be a fro and not quite tall enough to be a beehive. It was somewhere kind of in the middle of both of them while failing at both of them.
In the beginning, I was somewhat hopeful that she would be better than the last two bitchfests. She was an older woman, close to retirement, and had a kind voice. You know it's kind of heartening that even despite the hell I had experienced by this age, I still had a nice little concept of naive optimism.
The woman wasn't as blatant about her cruelty as the last two, but she certainly possessed cruelty in abundance. She didn't use her paddle that often, though she did on occasion. I'm guessing by her age she was just too frail to bother. That stupid bullshit of "this will hurt you more than it hurts me" might actually be true if the person has weak bone density.
Her preferred method of pain came in the form of humiliation. She loved to belittle her students and delighted in finding ways to do so. There was a boy in our class who had very little hand control and his handwriting was pretty bad. Every time we would have a handwriting lesson, she would tack his on the bulletin board and have all of us go up and look at it. "Now you see what he did? You see how he refuses to try and write in a better way? I want all of you to go up to him and tell him you know he can do better than this."
Yes, that's right. Instead of having the kid tested to see if he had developmental issues or sitting with him and working on his handwriting herself, she did THIS. One time instead of putting his work on our class bulletin board, she tacked one of his assignments to the board in the lunch room for the whole school to see.
My personal bit of hell with this woman happened a few weeks before Thanksgiving break. We were supposed to be working in our phonics books while she zoned out or plotted how to sell our souls or something. In a rare, rare, like insanely rare moment of ambition, I had taken my book home the night before and not only finished the assignment we were supposed to do, but the work I guessed we would be doing for the next day as well.
I did this because once we were finished with our assignments, we could do whatever we wanted . . . so long as it involved sitting quietly at our desks. Was working on this story in my head and wanted to spend the time drawing my characters. Logically, if we finished early we would have a little bit of time, if we finished the night before, we would have ALL the time.
So there I was, drawing my characters. From what I remember, the story revolved around some Amazonian type culture where all the warrior women worked to protect their lands from all evil males. This was how my little brain was processing the step-father abuse at home. Plus, I got to draw cool helmets. I was in the middle of working on an elaborate helmet when my teacher walked over to my desk.
"What are you doing?" she asked in her sweet old lady voice.
"Oh, I'm drawing."
She smiled that kind of fake smile adults smile when they really want to smash in a child's brain. "I think you know you have an assignment."
I nodded, so proud of myself. "I know. I'm already finished."
She frowned. "No you're not. I just gave out the assignment."
"Yes, I am." I started to pull my workbook out of my desk but she stopped me.
"You are lying."
"No, I'm not lying. I did it."
Her eyes grew cold. "Stand up. Come with me."
I was completely confused, upset, and just a little scared by this point, but I did as she instructed. She marched me out the door of the classroom and down the walkway to the first grade door. She knocked and when my evil first grade teacher answered, I swear the woman smiled at me like they'd planned this whole thing, even though I can't imagine how they could have.
"Hello, may we come in and see your class?" My first grade teacher said we could, and I was taken in front of the students. They all stared at me, some of them even giggled a little.
"Now, you had little BHB last year, did you not?" my teacher asked.
The first grade teacher looked at me for a long moment, as if she was trying to remember if she had me or not. "Why, I do believe I did."
"And when she was in your class, did she tell lies?"
"Why I don't think she did. It's very disappointing that she lies now. No one likes a liar, do they children?" And all the children in the first grade class agreed.
I felt such completely and utter humiliation at this moment. Two teachers discussing me and having everyone talk about how much no one would trust me. I knew all the kids in this class would talk about this, to other students, to their parents, to everyone.
And the worst part was that it wasn't even justified. I did the assignment. I did it before I was supposed to, but it was finished. She didn't even check to see if it was finished. She just believed what she wanted to believe and acted accordingly.
I'm not sure exactly what I was supposed to learn from this. Oh, wait. I guess it was to not lie. Or something. Anyway, what I DID learn was that some people are so set in their routines and ways of seeing things that if you dare to challenge them in even the smallest and most innocent of ways, they're going to do what they can to crush your spirit. Hmm, you know, the best thing I can say about elementary school is that I survived with my spirit uncrushed, DESPITE their best efforts to destroy it.
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