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.
My worst teacher was also my first. It was at nursery school, aged 3 to 4, and I had never encountered other children before. I would have meltdowns and try to run away, due to the noisy and overwhelming environment of the playground. As a result I was punished almost every day.
The punishment was being made to sit in the corner, cross legged, facing the walls for the remainder of the school day. If I as much as tried to turn my head towards the rest of the class the teacher would yell at me and tell me to face the wall again. If I cried I was shouted at even more and told that I was behaving like a baby. Those memories are still so vivid for me.