First grade started off great after I got over the newness of the first day. My teacher Lydia Troyer was kind and efficient in teaching a one room school with grades 1 through 8. We all loved her, but after six weeks something happened that she had to go home, and since that was out of state the school board had to find a new teacher fast.
On Monday morning when we got to school we were greeted by Ruth Miller who had agreed to finish the term. She didn't look as if she knew how to have fun as she sat grimly at her teachers desk and looked sternly at us.
We all sat there quietly and looked at her. I started feeling a lump in my throat again, I wanted to go home or have Lydia back, I looked over at cousin Emma and she looked scared too. Finally Ruth cleared her throat and said that we need to forget we had a teacher before her and that she will be making some changes. For starters she wants the upper grade children to go take down all the art that is on the walls.
I watched in dismay as they took down all the art that we had created during happy art periods the previous six Fridays. They laid them on her desk and she took them all, crumpled them, and threw them in the trash can, and stated "There, that's the last of that nonsense! We come to school to work, not to play." And proceeded to give us our assignments.
It wasn't long before it was obvious, that she didn't like cousin Marvin. He had a problem with stuttering that grew a lot worse after she started teaching. One day when the second grade was having their reading class, he was having an especially hard time with his stuttering and Ruth got very frustrated with him and told him that since he is too much of a baby to read to go back and sit in his seat.
I watched in consternation as he walked to his seat blinking back tears, and Ruth grabbed the trash can which was almost half full of crumpled papers and shavings from sharpening pencils and roughly placed it upside down over Marvin's head and shoulders. The trash fell on his lap and the floor around him as she told him he has to sit there like that for the rest of the day.
I tried my best to please her, to avoid experiencing her temper, but like everyone else I got to experience it directed at me a time or two as well.
Once the school term was over Ruth was not hired again. There were rumblings of problems in the community and everyone decided to home school the next term.
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That makes the Momma bear in me want to raise up and give old Ruth a rather not so nice piece of my mind. Poor Marvin. God bless him.
ReplyDeleteI do not understand how an adult can possibly think that any of that is acceptable... not notice the precious little faces looking back at her.
ReplyDeleteThat is so sad. I'm a former teacher and learning should be a joy, not a burden. Thankfully, your community did not allow her to return.
ReplyDeleteSo sad for your cousin Marvin's mistreatment by an adult. My dad had a speech impediment. He suffered many times by being made fun of. So I feel for that child and how that caused him to see himself as years passed by. No kid should have a bully for a teacher.
ReplyDeleteWhat an absolute grump Ruth Miller was! Totally unfit to be a teacher. I'm sure glad she didn't get hired for the next year.
ReplyDeleteAm I right in thinking that the Amish did not necessarily use trained teachers? Maybe this person was right out of her 'comfort' zone and had no idea how to cope. Nasty, though.
ReplyDeleteWhat a shame you could not keep your original teacher. It would have been a completely different year. I had a teacher similar to Ruth in 6th grade. So many migraines and stomach ailments I had that year due to the tension of being around this teacher who humiliated her students. Your community was so right to not hire her again.
ReplyDeleteThat is so awful.I wonder why the parents put up with it.My Dad also has a studdering problem was made fun of a lot and it's very painful.
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