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Thu 28 Jan, 2010 11:26 am
On the first day of class, of our fourth grade year, you introduced yourself as Mrs. Barton. You also introduced us to your wooden handled leather strap you called ?. I forget. I guess it was to be a preemptive threat to those of us who may displease you. Some students giggled uncomfortably, while others squirmed in their seats. But there was silence when you slammed it on the edge of a desk. You were proud of that strap and it was obvious that this demonstration was a part of your yearly routine.
You were nothing if not proud. With a John Wayne swagger, you'd walk to the front of the classroom and tell us stories of wild horses. With a masculine Texas drawl you taught us math and grammar and you were good at it.
On Fridays you administered the multiplication test. We all were required to make a "hundred" on this test, but some of us lagged behind. It was a stroke of genius when you decided the strap would be used on those of us who hadn't yet made our hundred. That following week the stragglers met the requirement-except for me. I later conquered trigonometry and calculus, but I never did make the score on your multiplication test. Did you know that if you were to give me that test right now, I still would not be able to make the score?
I learned something during our weekly visits in the hallway with the strap. I learned its secret. Children in classrooms shuttered in their seats as WHACK ?. WHACK.... WHACK thundered from the hallway. It was powerful. It stung just a little. Since it became such matter of routine, you must have known I learned its secret too.
You might be interested to know that you broke me. Not with the strap. The time I raised my head from my paper and you met the back of it with a ruler, was when. Then came your words. I don't remember what they were, something about daydreaming, but they stripped me of whatever rank I had managed to establish for myself. You had learned my secret too. It was an official seal of disapproval. Alliances crumbled. I was at the mercy of the wolves of the playground and there was no sanctuary. I was transformed.
You must've already known that our world had no use for dreamers or wild horses apart from footnotes and flickering screens. Workhorses, dependable and dull, were needed. There was no use dreaming of green meadows, when yellowed hay would do.
@chad3006,
Aww that's a bit sad and very well written.
@chad3006,
that's just so sad! Being bullied, whether it's by a teacher or someone your age, hurts terribly, breaks you down. I'm glad Swedish teacher's and parents haven't been allowed to physically punish, like give them a slap, kids for the last 40 years..
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