hurt

[baratron]

Damnit. I am sitting in an empty computer room crying my eyes out.

We're supposed to be writing a 2000 word essay about our own "experiences as a learner" - both in school and elsewhere. But of course it's impossible for me to write about school without writing about how badly I was bullied. And that's stirring up all sorts of emotions. Have a chunk of my essay to read:

I would highlight one of my science teachers as an example of how not to teach. For a start, she made it very clear which members of the class she liked. Her favourites could get away with anything, while the pupils she disliked would be yelled at for trivial offenses. I very much fell in the second camp. My theory now is she rejected me because I was too clever, and did not yet have the maturity to hide it. She picked on me because I sat at the front and put my hand up for every question, like Lisa in The Simpsons. She didn’t like it when I finished my work too quickly, or if I found a better way to do something than the way the book said. Her particular criticism was that I made “irrelevant” comments. I remember this well: we were doing flame tests of metals in a general science class, and I asked if that was how the colours of fireworks were made. At university, I eventually found out that, indeed, that was the case. But my teacher had done her best to make me feel small, and crush my natural enthusiasm for the subject out of me.

I have a small amount of sympathy for her, because I discovered later that she had been battling cancer for a while, and this had obviously affected her energy for dealing with "difficult" pupils. But I wasn’t disruptive – I was just really interested in science! I still feel upset, more than ten years on, for having my teacher ridicule me in front of the class for no worse offence than enjoying the subject. I was, of course, bullied horrendously throughout my schooling. I was intelligent, good at academic work, shy, sensitive, very bad at sports, and far too trusting – a clear target. Yet, while I am merely angry at the teachers who ignored my complaints even when I had bruises and holes in my uniform, I am outraged at a teacher who acted as a bully herself.

Y'know, this is the actual reason I always rejected the idea of being a teacher when people suggested it to me - the fact it's taken me ten years to stop being scared of large groups of children in school uniform. Even this time last year, I'd cringe if I was on the train at 4pm when there was an influx of kids, in case they noticed me - even though rationally I knew I must register only as a slightly odd-looking adult, not one of their peers who could be a good target. The part of my brain that was still 12 years old would go "meep - got to hide before they see me". It just completely fucking sucks.

And don't tell me I'm brave for going into teaching. I'm doing it because those poor kids who are geeks and freaks need someone there who's on their side - who has the authority to actually kick the asses of the ones who make their lives hell. Frankly, I don't want anyone else in the whole world to have to go through what I had to go through. I can't help everyone - but I can make a start.

Comments

[elfgeek.livejournal.com]

This kind of stuff triggers a similar reaction in me. Yeah, they do need someone like you who understands them.

[lovingboth]

Yes, part of the reason they're asking you to write about this is to get these sort of reactions out.

[barakta]

I concur with what Ian said, but still eep. I can empathise with that in that I had a history and biology teachers who did the same to me. I used to finish quickly partly because I had a computer (which was rare in my time) and they resented me for that.

I once got balled out in a class of almost rioting kids because I stopped typing to reread the 'what to do' instructions, and on discovering I'd completed all my tasks was about to ask what to do when Mr P starts screaming at me for being unattentive. I calmly pointed out I'd finished and he starts stabbing my screen and moaning about a typo. I gave up being polite and gave him the "don't touch my computer or stab the LCD rant".

Later on I got screamed at by my biology teacher in a class of people I didn't know (they timetabled me weirdly) for some exam thing. She got angry for me having my laptop with me (what did she expect?) and starting bitching and moaning about how I shouldn't expect to be allowed to use it. I didn't use it because I interpreted her as saying it was forbidden. I commented on this to my tutor only to find myself cornered 2 days later by my tutor and biology teacher accused of lying and shit stirring. I decided to walk away from that fight with a card up my sleeve as I was past caring.

Some teachers feel very threatened by clever children, they are too stretched to handle the clever ones when there are so many poorly performing and mediocre students who they have to get up to scratch, I guess they know clever kids like us will hit the targets so don't realise we need support and stuff too.

Guess I only bothered actually going to school because my teachers were generally good in my final 2 years (10 and 11) and my German teacher pissed me off enough to be super-annoying at her by being a Deaf student doing languages. Had I not had people like my chem tutor (who you would have loved) I would have told them all to sod off and spent my life wagging it by going back home and to bed zzzzz.

Reminds me I ought to write to my chemistry teacher and say thx for inspiration.

I am sure one day you will have students who thank you for being a good teacher. I have attended some of your BiCon workshops and seen the amount of effort you put into them to make them interesting for a wide range of people. You appreciate that students are people not robotic entities.

Good luck for writing the rest of the essay, hope it doesn't distress you too much.

Natalya

[kixie.livejournal.com]

I realised there's really different kinds of teachers when I was 15. I had this awful Western Civ teacher who hated me because I asked questions - I was really interested in the class. I adore history and ancient greece and all that, but she just hated me. We had a substitute for a week and when I started asking quesitons and whatnot, he was just...pleased. Glad I was into it and eager to help me learn more and understand.

Again, not disruptive, just into actually learning.

As for people who become teachers, I tend to have a lot of respect for them. You're dedicating your life to teaching others, having non ignorant fuckwits running around. I think it's a great thing that people should do more often, but I understand why not, given kids today. *old lady voice*

I think you'll be a great teacher. From what I know of you I really think you'll be great.

Just remember to breathe :-)

[jinian.livejournal.com]

The world needs more smart teachers who don't suck. It's very cool that you're doing this.

[johnckirk.livejournal.com]

I can see why it would be upsetting to have teachers picking on you. That only happened to me twice at school, and by then I was old enough to handle it (15 the first time, 17 the second time), so it was just a nuisance rather than a nightmare. The bigger problems were teachers who either ignored bullying or tried to squelch interest in a subject (as you mentioned). E.g. I remember a younger boy asking the computer teacher where he could learn more about MS-DOS (this was circa 1991), and the teacher literally said "I won't tell you because I don't want you to know" (he viewed it as a security risk). So, I definitely think that students would benefit from having a sympathetic teacher.

However, while I don't want to put you off the idea, I'm wondering whether you have any examples of how teachers should behave? This is almost certainly something you've already considered, and hopefully something that they'll cover on your course, but just in case: what would you do if someone told you that they were being bullied? Or if you saw it happening directly, for that matter? I get the impression that most teachers nowadays have their hands tied, e.g. they'll risk get sued if they even touch a pupil.

Personally, by the time I left school, I didn't have much of a problem of people picking on me. However, there was a friend of mine, Matthew (2 years below me), who consistently got picked on by another boy, Nick (3 years below me). So, I adopted a simple rule - each time Nick hit Matthew, I would hit Nick. Once he realised that this was the pattern, he started behaving himself. The drawback was that it only worked while I was around, and I was concerned about what would happen the following year after I left the school. (I don't actually know how it turned out in the long run.) I was hoping that I could encourage Matthew to stand up to Nick himself, knowing that I was there to back him up, so that once he got into that habit, he wouldn't need me anymore, but that didn't really happen. Anyway, the point is that as a fellow pupil, I could get away with this (Nick couldn't complain about me without getting himself into an equal amount of trouble), whereas it would be more iffy for a teacher to do that (particularly in a state school). Mind you, I guess that you're less equipped to be violent anyway. I'd certainly like to think that there's a peaceful way of solving problems like that, but I haven't witnessed it.

The main advice I'd give is that reputation is very important, so start as you mean to go on. (This applies to teachers and pupils.) Once teachers got a reputation for being very strict, they rarely had to punish people, because everyone would behave. Whereas if they started out being perceived as soft (a common problem if they took the "hey, I'm your friend" approach), it was very difficult to overcome that.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

At the moment, I have some ideas for what I should do, but I'm not going to talk about them in case they're wrong. Doing the wrong thing could be worse than doing nothing at all. We have specific classes in how to deal with bullying and harassment later in the term. (And this leads on to my Other problem... but more about that next week).

Yeah, my essay had plenty of examples of good teachers, too :) Just I found it a lot harder to give examples of how wonderful some of my teachers were than to constructively criticise the bad ones. And I didn't really need to vent about the good ones in my journal.

We should meet up sometime this century, btw. Email me.

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

Bravery consists largely of doing that which needs doing in the face of adversity.

[36.livejournal.com]

I had an IT teacher who made me feel small for finishing the set work early and doing my own thing trying to learn more with the language we were given (Logo) and who later bad mouthed me to my parents.

I also had an English teacher who had a class full of people literally throwing chairs, but would end up shouting at me for something trivial (I think I ended up playing up in that class because I seemed to be punished for doing well).

Luckily most of my other teachers were either very good or totally inadequate in a non-damaging way.

I wish you every luck on becoming one of the good ones.