(Originally posted on LiveJournal)
Over on the Comic Book Resources Forums, on Gail Simone’s board “You’ll All Be Sorry”, she started a thread about Bad Teachers. She asked for stories about bad teachers, wherever they were encountered in one’s education.
But it got me thinking about how much we resent bad teachers we’ve had, even years later. The experiences seem to be something more than just an “unfortunate occasion” that we try to forget, like social gaffs. We seem to have this deep desire to actually learn, and when teachers grossly fail to teach, we know it as being in a way harmful to ourselves.
And that I find very interesting. In spite of many people saying they didn’t like school, or don’t like learning stuff, they too seem to have that resentment of bad teaching. I think it’s encouraging about human nature, to know there is that underlying thirst for more knowledge.
One story I related in that thread had to deal with my Second Grade teacher. In First Grade, I and two friends were doing so well in our reading, our teacher (whom I adored, I think — she was great!) gave the three of us the Third Grade reader, let us sit out in the hall during Reading Period, and away we went, taking turns reading aloud (and enjoying real stories, instead of the stupid “Look, Jane! See Spot run!” bits. Of course, over the summer, I continued reading, on my own. And, it seems clear now, silently and speedily.
Anyway, the first day of class in Second Grade, when we got to the Reading Period and were sitting in the circle, pro-active me spoke up and said that I, Karen and Colleen (I think they were in the same Second Grade class with me, but I’m not sure) had been reading from the Third Grade reader. Actually, I’d spoken up because I really, really did not want to go back to having to read that stupid Second Grade reader. Now, you’d think this information about advanced reading would have been on my school records and she would have read it before the school year started. But apparently not, because in response to my statement, she had me open the reader and read from the first page.
Now, mind you, I think this was the first time in three months I had read anything aloud. So I started reading the stepped up “Jane, Spot is running down the hill! Watch him run!” I was not prepared. I stumbled my way through a paragraph, she looked at me as if I were a fibbing two-headed disaster and said “You can’t read at a third grade level.” And that was the end of that.
I was so furious at her about that, that I’ve almost completely blocked out Second Grade. I had a boyfriend in Second Grade, and I don’t know how that came about! (I mean, I remember we had that relationship, but how we came together, I don’t know!) Years later I realized what had happened: I’d gotten so used to reading swiftly and silently, and so out of practice reading aloud, that my eyes were moving faster than my tongue. Hence the stumbling reading, something I didn’t recover from until…. gosh, I was in college. My eyes would still travel faster than the tongue.
Recently, after clearing out Mom’s house, I found the copies of my report cards. High grades across the board — well, except for that C in handwriting, which didn’t disappear until part the way through Fourth Grade, I think.
But I always resented that dismissal of the teacher. Because that was the ONLY thing she did to verify my statement. She apparently didn’t check the records or ask the other girls (the First Grade teacher had gotten married and left the school, so she wasn’t available to be asked).
Fortunately, it didn’t stop me from continuing to read on my own.
But all teachers seem to leave an imprint on us, whether they are good or bad. It makes me curious about how such encounters affected other people. (Like the other students who were affected by my second example in that thread: the Shakespeare professor who ruined Shakespeare for many of his students.)
Comments
muuranker – Jun. 13th, 2008
I want to preface this comment with the observation that I would not have wanted me anywhere near a school I taught at. That I was a really horrid child (although I think that age has knocked the corners off). And that teachers have an impossible task.
My ‘bad teacher’ memory is from (tries to juggle US grades in her head – 7th grade? It would be the grade below the final four years of schooling you get before you go to University).
It was the first Biology lesson, and the teacher was explaining the word ‘Biology’. Bio = life, ology = study. Yup, up with you there, ma’m. But then she said ‘like archaeology, the study of buildings’. I said ‘No.’ We had a stand up fight over the etymology of archaeology, which she resolved by abandoning the class and taking me to the headmaster. I asked to be removed from her class. He said it was a silly mistake on her part, and I should give her another chance. I said no, I did not want to hear anything she said: if a person is not able to consider another view of something, and consider that their view might possibly be wrong, you cannot trust anything they have learned is truth. So I’d rather not know her version of truth.
I told you I was a horrid child! That poor teacher … she must have felt that I was destroying her authority in front of the class.
So I think you are soooo right when you say “We seem to have this deep desire to actually learn, and when teachers grossly fail to teach, we know it as being in a way harmful to ourselves”.
As a child, I thought the consequence of this inadequate teacher was that I failed to learn the stages of cell division (library rather than biology for you, Miss). But actually, now for the first time, you make me think: the failure was more on the behalf of the headmaster: the lesson I needed to learn was that before steam-rollering with the truth, I should consider what I want to achieve: sometimes leaving people in ignorance is far better. But that took a long long time.
Actually, I don’t think I have properly learned the lesson.
scribblerworks – Jun. 13th, 2008
What gets me, when I hear stories like yours, is how rarely the teacher even considers checking a reference to verify for all that either the teacher or the student is correct.
But I’m frequently right there with you with the steam-roller. I do so want to flatten them out and move on. But I’m just enough of a politic creature, that I bite my tongue and try for the lower keyed response. Sometimes. But it’s hard to “think before speaking.”
