Monday, July 20, 2009

School Days

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 as they took down all the art that we had created during happy art periods the previous six Fridays and 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 one day it happened. I was at the chalkboard writing my numbers when I really needed to go.... I told her. But she told me that I have to wait. Somehow I managed to wait and when recess came she didn't let me go then either because I had "lied" to her, because I apparently didn't look too uncomfortable while I was waiting for recess. After recess the first graders were once again at the chalkboard and I could hardly stand still any longer but I didn't dare ask her for permission to go and so, the unthinkable happened.

She was very upset with me then, because not only was there a mess on the floor, but our lunch boxes were kept under the chalkboard and the puddle reached her paper bag and seeped into her lunch. She made me stand by the stove to dry and when it was time for lunch she ate my lunch and said I would have to do without eating that day.

Cousin Marvin and Emma and a few of the other children came to the rescue and shared some of their food when Ruth wasn't looking.

Once the school term was over Ruth was not hired again. There were rumblings of problems in the community and so everyone decided to home school the next term.

24 comments:

  1. Oh you poor thing!! There are always those teachers who make us better people and believe in the impossible and then there are those who almost get an odd sense of pleasure playing mind games and basically "torturing" those who can't defend themselves. It sounds like you had one of each that year. Sooo glad she didn't come back!!! Hope you're doing well ~

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  2. That is so sad and you remember it all these years later so it must have been traumatic.
    I also feel bad for the poor boy who stuttered. I hope he grew up strong and happy and without self esteem problems. Sometimes it can take one unkind person to really mess up someone's life - especially a child.
    I am so glad you got a new teacher.
    Wonder what happened to Ruth after that?
    Did you or the other children tell your parents?

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  3. this reminds me a "Little House on the Prairie" episode. An awfully mean teacher replaced an amazing teacher, but he didn't last! Makes ya wonder.

    http://randommusingsfrommypov.com

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  4. This made me cry for all the children. How often does things like this happen and children don't or won't tell their parents.
    Blessings.

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  5. My heart aches for you and the other children that this happened to! A teacher is suppose to be inspiring - not frightening!

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  6. Wow, that woman wins the witchy teacher award. What a terrible experience for the children. Too bad any child had to go through that. Home schooling had to be an improvement.

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  7. Guess this is an example of why people are home schooling again, although this wasn't a recent event. I was against home schooling in today's world, but am leaning more that way.

    This story could have been any child, and that is what is so sad about it.

    Leedra’s Photos For Fun

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  8. Mercy, I hope and pray that woman never had any children...what awful pain she inflicted on you and the other students in her class that year. The first teacher sounded so sweet...the difference between the two sounds like the difference between night and day.

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  9. That sounds so awful! I'll never understand why people who do not enjoy the beauty of children, want to work with them. She sounded so cruel and probably left lasting imprints on most of those children. I hope she never worked with children again.
    I'm so glad to hear you had a new teacher the following year.
    XXXXX

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  10. Re AverettLadyNana:

    The last I heard she never got married or had children.

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  11. Oh,this brought tears to my eyes! What a very unhappy time that must have been! I just loved visiting here and reading your wonderful words. blessings,Kathleen

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  12. How awful! I bet all were glad to have her gone. Poor woman. She seems to have missed the joy of having children in her life.
    Dana

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  13. Hello!!!
    Good day to you and thank you for stopping in and visiting my blog today. I too love reading other people's blogs as it is so interesting how other people live or have lived, as with you, I have visited many Amish Communities, there in Pa and in Indiana. I respect them for living such a clean and simple life, although all that hard work really isn't that simple now is it???
    Thanks for stopping by
    God Bless you
    hugs,
    jamie
    I will pop in and take a look now if that is ok

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  14. Hi
    it's me again, I wet my pants in 1st or 2nd grade too at school, I still remember the embarrassment to this very day, so many people assume a 5-7 year old child, oh so young just a mere child, when in fact they are so aware of everything going on!!!!
    hugs,
    jamie

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  15. I'm a retired earlychildhood teacher and it just makes me sick to think you had a teacher who was so unkind to the children. I can hardly believe a teacher would take down the artwork of the children and throw them into the trash. That really upsets me. I'm so sorry you and your cousins were treated badly, too. Good thing she was not rehired the next year. Sounds like she wasn't much of a teacher.
    Thank you for visiting my blog. Please visit again.

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  16. How heartbreaking, I'm so sorry you had to go through that

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  17. There are some bad teachers out there! Unfortunately, I had a few of them. What I don't understand is that we are expected to send our children to school everyday. Yet, we don't know nothing about the teachers! They don't even want you in the schools anymore for much of anything. They will only let a few select parents into the schools to volunteer.

    God Bless!
    Angela

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  18. Thats pretty sad when some one chooses to be a teacher of children and behaves like that.
    I look for ward to reading more about you...thank you for your visit.

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  19. So glad she never came back and I hope something huge happened in her life so she didn't continue to pass along such pain and anger. I have some bad school memories, too, and it was a huge factor in choosing to homeschool. I don't know why people EVER choose the teaching profession when it's obvious they hate children. Doesn't it make you just want to fix each little child that is abused and humiliated? Thanks for sharing this post.

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  20. Oh my, that teacher should have had charges brought against her for child abuse, for that is what she did.
    You are about my daughters' age so I know you went to school not so long ago and there were things that could be done about teachers like her. I hope the boy who stuttered is O.K. now, and the teachers' cruelty did not leave him too bad off.

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  21. Amazing. Some thirty years ago, when I was a young lawyer, I had a case where a second grader was actually forced by the teacher to wear a dunce hat in class. She was reprimande when we brought that to the authorities' attention, but I shudder to think of the damage that was caused to that young child. Sheep C

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  22. Wow and I thought the school experiences with myself and my children that brought me to not send my children to school were bad! Mmmm Mmmm.

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  23. Brings back some bad memories I have of first grade and a mean teacher...

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  24. That's beyond just being unkind...it is abusive, and would have been subject to legal action had it been reported. The harm you can cause a person by treating them like that is immense. It would be most interesting to find out in what way she thought her behavior represented how a Christian is called to behave.

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Thank you so much for taking time to comment. I love hearing your thoughts.