one time in sixth grade i did my math homework and then because i was excited that i had grasped the lesson so well, i did the next day’s homework too
the next day in class i told my teacher, and she looked constipated for a second, and then said dismissively, “well, then you’re not very good at following directions, are you.”
#I identify strongly with this#I got reprimanded on multiple ocasions for reading ahead and/or already having knowledge
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Cause tags are truth. Maaan ,that one time a teacher stole my encyclopedia cause it proved her wrong.
when I was eight and in public school, we could do a report based on any historical character who had a book about them in the school library.
I picked Harriet Tubman because Harriet Tubman, and I wrote about how her master had thrown an anvil at her head, leaving her with a permanent dent in her forehead. I know that the anvil part was definitely in the school library book.
My teacher circled the word “anvil” and took off points.
“I HAVE SPELLED ANVIL CORRECTLY,” I roared in tiny confrontation.
“No,” she said, and it transpired that she didn’t know or care that “anvil” is a word or that “anvils” are a thing.
And so despite my helpful attempts to explain what anvils were, including references to blacksmiths and the Roadrunner, I had points taken off OH MY GOD.
YES, I AM STILL MAD ABOUT THIS TWENTY YEARS LATER.
FUCK YOU, LADY. YOU ARE DOUBTLESSLY DEAD BY NOW AND I HOPE YOU KNOW YOUR STUDENTS STILL HATE YOU.ANVILS ARE A THING.
From “Daring Greatly” by Brene Browne:
“…85 percent of the men and women we interviewed for the shame research could recall a school incident from their childhood that was so shaming, it changed how they thought of themselves as learners.”
I think about this quote a lot when I think of school.
Sometimes you just see a combination of posts that really crystallizes something for you. thank you spcsnaptags for putting these thoughts together this way.
my mom got yelled at by my kindergarten teacher because I already knew the alphabet/could read, how to tie my shoes, and a few other like.. super basic life skill before the school year started and she didn’t know what to do with me.
I wasn’t disruptive about my boredom and would just quietly help any kids around me who were struggling with whatever we were doing. but I still got sent home with ‘frowny face’ more often than ‘happy face’ because of it (our daily feedback for the parents instead of grades, and a huge waste of paper basically).
also, my trigonometry teacher in high school yelled at me and sent me to the office when I proved that the answer key in her book had given the wrong answer on a homework question. because she’d called on me expecting to have not done the homework, and when I gave my answer she got smug and told me to do the work on the board in front of the class, intending to publicly shame me for getting an answer wrong. turns out like 90% of the class got the same answer I did and she tried to write me up for ‘causing a disturbance in the classroom’.
Proof that we need to up our education systems this should not be happening
