The Worst Teacher I Ever Had

My least favorite experience with a teacher was in 3rd grade. Everything was cool up until this day. I was not good at math. I’m not sure what kids are learning now in 3rd grade, but in my day it really was simple stuff like 17-2=15, multiplication, and simple division. It’s not that I couldn’t understand the stuff, but I just needed time to think about it. My teacher (and I will attempt to keep her nameless) would give us these long worksheets of like 50+ problems to do on top of the regular problems from the textbook. In my opinion that was entirely too much for an 8-year-old, but I suppose it helped develop my tolerance for a few years later. Anyway, at home we had a strict bedtime of 7:00 PM sharp…no excuses! So, naturally I would not be done with my homework by then because, a.) it just took me so long to complete and my parents didn’t help me, and b.) it was so much! Saying all that to say I consistently returned to school with incomplete homework.

We also used to have these competitive drills in class. There were two problems with this:  1.) I have not a competitive bone in my body, and, 2.) I HATE being put on the spot. She would call out a problem, and you had like 3 seconds to answer it, and if you got it wrong or couldn’t answer it you would have to sit down. There would be several rounds of this until there was one person left standing. Of course whoever was left standing won. Maybe once or twice I made it through a round, but typically I was out on the first run. Between this and the homework, I suppose she had enough of me. I don’t know what was going on with her that day, but she was not a happy camper. One Monday I think it was, I returned to school with more than half of my homework incomplete. She sent us home over the weekend with like 5 worksheets (front and back!!!) of math problems to do. Who does that?? I don’t know what my family did that weekend, but I sincerely did not have time to do the work–and who gives elementary students homework on the weekends anyway?! Anyway, I turned in my blank pages and she had a fit and started to question me. This is in front of the whole class by the way. I don’t know what all she said to me, but I remember her saying, “…you and your white little you know what.” Ok, first of all I was confused because I’m not white! Neither one of my parents are white! I might be a bit lighter than most black people, but my skin color is nowhere near white!! So, number one, I’m confused as to why she would say that. Number two, why is she yelling at me?? Number three, WHY IS SHE YELLING AT ME?! Shouldn’t a teacher take an interest, or at least attempt to help a child who has a need? And it’s not like I was a bad student! I made awesome grades in the other subjects (minus social studies), so she should have been able to tell that I’m not a dummy. She never offered to help me–EVER–and she’s mad that I had the WHOLE weekend to do this homework and still couldn’t complete it. Anyway, I know some of my classmates heard her say that because a couple of them looked at me in shock, so they had to have heard her. Needless to say, I started to cry uncontrollably and she sent me out of the class.

I don’t remember what happened for the rest of the day, but I remember being outside for a very long time and being totally distracted, distraught, and uninterested for the rest of the day. I went home and told my mom what happened. She wrote my teacher a very long note. I brought the note back the next day feeling a sense of triumph and revenge–my mom was an avid letter writing mom. I gave Ms. B the note. That really is her initial, but I’m sure you can imagine what else it could stand for! She read it, and then she laughed. She handed the note to the teacher’s assistant to read as well. I don’t remember what she said to me, but she couldn’t believe this note. I wish I knew what it said!! Anyway, of course she couldn’t believe that I would make up such a story and have my mom write this note. WHAT?! She then addresses the class and asks everyone if they heard her say something inappropriate to me yesterday. “No, Ms. B****,” everyone said–she really did have 4 other letters in her name FYI 😉 Everyone denied hearing anything including the ones I KNOW heard her say it!! I had NEVER felt so betrayed in my whole entire life. From then on, every opportunity she got to slander me she took it. If I were around when she was talking to other teachers, she would introduce me as “the liar,” or, “the one who lied on me.” This went on for the WHOLE YEAR! So, the last day of school we were all just waiting to go home, and she decided to have her own little impromptu awards ceremony. She gave us a little superlative and tossed us a Blow Pop. She would say, “This is for xyz….” She was struggling with what to say about me because throughout the year she did find me to be a pleasant and cooperative student. However, she still couldn’t let this liar thing go. She said, “This is for lying on me,” and tossed me a Blow Pop. I wanted to throw that thing back at her so bad!! Instead I just gave her a dirty look…or at least I felt like I was. People tell me my looks don’t come out the way I think they do lol. But anyway…Ms. B…my least favorite teacher!