I Wish My Teacher Knew ...

Post Reply New Topic

A teacher in Denver, Colorado asked her third-grade students to complete the sentence "I wish my teacher knew ...".

Source: "Teacher Shares Heartbreaking Notes From Young Students"

If you are a student, what do you wish that your teacher(s) knew about you?

I wish my teacher knew how painful it is for me to sit in a classroom; that having to sit and listen to a lecture gives me anxiety and depression and even a feeling kind of like claustrophobia, which makes it impossible for me to learn from a lecture so I have to learn everything from book; how much I hate having to go to community college when all I want to do is study graduate level mathematics and physics; that I spend more time on studies for my own enrichment than I do on what I study for school; that having to worry about grades makes me like a subject less, especially when it interferes with what I study on my own; that I don't even check my own grades because I fear it will make me stress out more than it's worth; that the last time I went to school I was getting bad grades in REMEDIAL math and physics classes (well not TECHNICALLY remedial but as far as I'm concerned anything at freshman/sophomore level is remedial) and I couldn't get counseling which is why I acted out and got kicked out and thrown in the nuthouse; that I want to quit school altogether but I only attend because of a bureaucratic restriction that states "no transfers with fewer than 60 credits no matter what!" and if I tried to do original math research on my own nobody would take me seriously without a degree...

That I am a genius and that an A is simply a foregone conclusion. It would make it so much easier for everyone.

I wish my professors knew that only 2 or 3 out of 20 of us read the material.

Oh wait, they DO know because they didn't read it either.

I wish my teacher knew that I despise higher education as is nothing more than a system of which to make people usable and abusable in as short amount of time as possible.
I wish my teacher knew that I think that he is completely ignorant on mathematics.
I wish my teacher knew that I think being in class is a waste of time, because it is so incredibly boring and shallow.
I wish my teacher knew that I wish that I was in a place where I could receive a real education.

I wish my teacher knew how much I hate group work, I get really tired of people taking credit for my work.

I wish my teacher knew the only way to get along with me is to pretend I don't exist and never recognize me. I am only used to being invisible.

I wish my teachers had known that not understanding the lesson did not mean that I was either stupid or lazy.

I wish my teachers had known that understanding the lesson meant that I could move on to the next lesson, and not have to spend the next two weeks hearing the same lesson explained over and over again.

I wish my teachers had known that stealing my art supplies and giving them to the other students while I was out sick was something that would effect me so badly that I would remember it nearly 50 years later, and as if it had happened yesterday.

I wish my teachers had known that those bruises were not there because I was clumsy, but that they were caused by someone beating me.

I wish my teachers had known how bored I was reading at the same grade level as the other kids when I could read at twice my grade level and comprehend what I was reading.

I wish my teachers had known that I was an entirely different person than my two older brothers, and that taking their revenge out on me was not going to hurt my stupid brothers at all.

I wish my teachers knew how hard it was to sit still. It wasn't that I didn't want to pay attention, it was that I found it incredibly difficult.

I wish my teachers knew how boring school work was and how much smarter I was than everyone else: even though my writing skills were atrocious.

I wish teachers knew how ridiculous it was to say 'in the REAL world', usually referencing how easy school was. In the real world, half my classmates would have been fired or arrested and I do not have to fear being jumped by roving gangs whenever I step outside.

I thought this for many years until I found out that the teachers knew EXACTLY how I got all those bruises. After I graduated I discovered they all feared for their jobs (being new teachers) so they kept quiet.

I was the same way. How I got through the lectures was constant stimming. My normal stim method is finger snaps but that's too distractive in an NT college classroom so I transferred that hand motion to scribbling geometric shapes on paper. Two things: first, I absorbed about twice as much information because my ability to stem calmed my mind enough to listen closely, and two, my professors thought I was a good note taker and thus a good student.

I wish my teacher knew that the concepts of vinyl records and a world without electricity are not unfathomable for teenagers.

I wish my teacher knew that when I sit still on the bleachers during PE class it isn't becuase I'm lazy or don't want to exercise; it's because I'm in a bleak, empty mood and I can barely get myself to move at all.

I wish my teacher knew that I am not made of porcelain and can, in fact, survive getting hit by a tennis ball.

I wish my teacher knew that I have a lot going on in my mind and what comes out of my mouth does not represent a tenth of it.

(The last three apply pretty much exclusively to my social skills teacher.)

I wish my teachers new about my social anxiety and selective mutism.

I also wish they were aware of how dumb school is.

This.

Or

...that I move SO I can pay attention, not because I'm not. And that stopping it pretty much means I won't understand anything in the lesson at all.

BINGO!!

Yes, that drove me nuts. I liked to walk around or change positions constantly and the adult would ALWAYS stop and say "when you are ready to pay attention we can continue." I still do this as an adult and people constantly think it means I am not listening to them.

I AM PAYING ATTENTION!! !! QUIT STOPPING AND MAKING RIDICULOUS ASSUMPTIONS!! !

In elementary school, I wish my teachers knew that I wasn't lonely and had no wish to play more with the other children than I already did, so they would leave me alone.

I wish all my maths teachers knew all along that I needed more help in maths.

In high school I wish my teachers knew that I couldn't focus when people were talking.

Are you people suggesting the purpose of school is not to kill curiosity, to make people think they're too stupid for any intellectual pursuit and to get them to give up their dreams as early as possible?

What kind of world do you envision---one full of happy, learnèd scholars achieving their full potentials and making the world a wonderful place to live? Come on, who, in their right mind, would want that?