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.
I was schooled in the 70’s. Primary school wasn’t nice. I got put into remedial lessons as I wouldn’t bond with others and my spelling / handwriting was terrible and still is. I then went to Secondary school and learnt to stay under the radar. My English teacher would mark my homework in the classroom in front of the class and laugh at all my spelling mistakes and get me to repeat the words in front of the class and how I spelt them. She would say that if I didn’t improve then I would be put into the lower sets with, “ the pond feeders”. Turns out obviously that I’m dyslexic. Physical violence was quite normal with some of the older male teachers as they had been in the war and discipline is all boys understand.