I had a mean ol nun for math in 7th grade. She was just a miserable old bitch anyway, and I would find that out by the end of the year. She really like to punish me for every tiny infraction she could, just to fuck with me. She made my life miserable that year, my parents had to have numerous conversations with the principal but she was a nun too, so she couldn’t do any wrong, she was a woman of god. She held me to a different standard and moved the goalposts all the time.
I’ll always remember—I LOVED math as a kid; it was always my favorite subject. I loved having black and white answers that you still had to figure out all the steps for. I was SO excited because we were starting algebra that year. On the first day of class, she asked us “whose favorite subject is math?” and I enthusiastically raised my hand, along with two boys in the class. She seemed disheartened that only three of us raised our hands. She said “Oh, I’m going to have to change that!” And, by God, she did.
As I was typing this out, I remembered a high school teacher that was also very toxic. She was a layperson, though. I had her class junior year. At some point in the quarter, I had a virus that made me down for the count for two weeks. My mom called the school and asked if my teachers could send home my homework and assignments so I could work on them and not get behind. She was the only teacher who didn’t send anything home. It wasn’t a rigorous class so it wasn’t that abnormal that there wasn’t much for her. Weeks pass, I get my report card, I have a C- (unusual for me; I think it’s my first in high school). I’m upset. I go home, mom asks to see my homework and stuff, so we look at it together and the average of all my stuff comes out to like a B+ at worst. Mom calls the school. Apparently, there were assignments that I missed while I was out sick. Mom asks “Why wasn’t she given those assignments when she was out?” and the teacher tells her it was optional for her to send him assignments—when I got back to school, I should have asked her what I was missing, that she was under no obligation to provide me with that information. So, thanks, lady.
Other things she did: Make coffee and other (non alcoholic) drinks for herself, and send anyone to the office if they dared bring anything to drink to class, even water. Play us weird songs while working on in-class assignments Gossip about other students’ home lives Sent me to the office because I wore a sweatshirt of the college I got accepted to THE DAY I GOT MY FIRST ACCEPTANCE TO COLLEGE (we wore uniforms) Once told the student who sat behind me “I hope to have a son like you, someday” out of nowhere
And I just thought of another one—not me, but a friend—similar to the missing assignments. My friend missed classes at her community college for like a week and a half in the middle of term because her mom when through some pretty serious mental health shit. So she emailed her professors and asked for the assignments. They all provided them. She completed them, and finished out the term with perfect attendance. Gets her report card. Got an F on there. After some investigation, the F prof tells her that even though she turned in all her assignments, and her work was of good quality, she automatically failed the class because she missed one more session than was allowed. Like, this bitch TOOK all her assignments and GRADED THEM, and saw her in EVERY CLASS and it never once occurred to her that my friend might like to have the valuable information that she’s going to fail anyway and there is nothing she can do.
If you’re familiar with higher ed and financial aid, a student has to make “satisfactory academic progress” in order to continue to received federal financial aid. Because of this ONE PROFESSOR, my friend stumbled academically and then lost her financial aid and had to drop out of college because she could not afford to pay out of pocket. Like, how can you claim to be n educator and care so little about students, their actual lives, and their success?