Published on 12, July, 2020
I saw something today, which prompted me to ask this question: Did any teachers single you out, or treat you badly at school? I was in school from the 1970’s, and things were different back then.
I recall being singled out at age 6, and forced to stand on the table during the lesson as an example of a stupid child. I was often ridiculed, and she said things like it’s typical for me to be stupid because ‘people like you’ are. (Because of my skin colour).
At 11 I was constantly picked on by my maths teacher. She would ask me questions when she knew I wouldn’t know the answer. She picked me despite others putting their hand up to answer. She tried to make me recite my times tables or give her answers to some when she called them out. She told me that I should be able to answer them, as all children my age can, and what was it that was wrong with me that I wasn’t able to learn them. And other things when I didn’t get all questions answered in the time frame, or got poor marks in a test. I wasn’t ever ‘stupid’. My auditory processing is slow, and I can’t work under pressure if I’m also anxious.
On reading this, and the harrowing accounts above, my experience in the junior school of being pulled out of the class by my hair by a female teacher seems like nothing.
When I was at school pain was part of the curriculum in the form of corporal punishment. Slippers for the girls. Cane for the boys.
I remember in infant school a little (non white) girl regularly being forced to stand crying facing the wall all day.
In junior school I remember a teacher forcing a boy to stand facing the classroom with his arms out. The teacher then piled heavy books onto the boy's hands.
My main bullying, physical and mental, came from other pupils.
Oh yes, we had sammy the skipper, the cane and a ruler. Luckily I didn’t receive any!
I’ve always said I wasn’t bullied at school, but going by other peoples accounts, I think I probably was, just I didn’t realise.