I was bullied by a teacher!

I was talking to one of my best friends the other day and we got to talk about something that brought up a random old thought. She has been subbing at the schools in her area and mentioned how some teachers follow suit and will essentially bully the students who they don’t have faith in. I was astonished by the fact a professional would act that way to kids who were in elementary school. Then I remembered something that happened to me, which had me question my astonishment.

A teacher never perpetually bullied me, but I did have a teacher who managed to embarrass me and make me feel horrible about myself in the seventh grade. It was my history teacher, and it was super weird that she felt the need to do this.

I don’t remember the exact assignment, but we had to draw the country of Africa over and over and label areas… I was lazy and did no take my time tracing the picture; it wasn’t the assignment to do so. I just drew the basic shape, free hand, to the best of my ability to complete the assignment. (I’m not an artist).  Apparently this was comical to my teacher and she felt the need to make it an example, I never knew what the example was except to make me feel bad.

I remember walking from math class to wait for a friend to leave her first period history class and this kid walks out and stops me and says “nice drawings!” I was confused by the comment.. I was quickly filled in by my friend on our way to science. She mentioned that our teacher had shown her entire first period class my worksheet and made a comment that the drawings were not very good. I was upset to say the least. That same kid who made the comment was also in our science class and continued to make comments that did not make me feel better about the situation.

Later that day I finally reached her fourth period class and was one of the first in the room. She comes up to me and says, “So I’m sure you’ve heard I’ve been showing everyone your assignment?” I immediately broke down crying. (I was, and still am, super sensitive.) I was hurt that she not only made a joke of my homework in front of the entire class, but that she brought it up to me like it was funny. She then told me to go ahead and go to the bathroom and come back when I was feeling better.

 

I came back a few minutes after the bell and took my seat and she started her fourth and last discussion of the day about my homework. And after she was done she set the paper on my desk and handed me a starburst for “being a good sport.” It felt like a giant slap in the face, and I was beyond hurt and embarrassed by the whole ordeal. I was also 13, so that wasn’t helpful to my self-esteem.

Looking back now if that happened to me on such a bologna assignment I would laugh it off and make a joke of it. But at thirteen having people make jokes about it to me during other classes before even knowing what I was up against blew my mind. I don’t know if the teacher meant to be mean, I’m sure she didn’t but I would think a teacher would be more sensitive to student about such a topic… Maybe she thought I would react differently, but I was bullied a bit back then, nothing too major just about acne, and middle school stuff like that… regardless it was pretty rude of her, and something to this day I remember.  That says a lot about what a teacher can do to “bully” a student… Or at least make them feel like crap. Teachers should be people who you can trust, not someone who makes you feel like a target of jokes.

Regardless if she had no ill intentions kids took the reigns and made me the butt of their jokes over the situation.