Had enough - I'm sick of the behaviour of some teachers

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In fifth grade, I started at a new school. It was pretty; it was Christian; it was small. The principal personally told me she was looking forward to having me there. There were uniforms, so I didn't have to worry about fashion, but there were multiple choices, so I could still work within my sensory requirements.

Rather quickly, I was having trouble with a certain teacher. She had an autistic son, and partway through the school year tendered her resignation because she wanted to have time to place him in a group home. What that meant was that she no longer worried about how her behavior toward me would be perceived.

Meanwhile, the four other girls in the class had been ignoring me mostly, except to take advantage of my academic ability a couple of times. I had been coming to feel alienated from them. I also thought this particular teacher was calling on me less often than the other kids, though I hadn't counted the relative frequencies of her calling on everyone.

So on the day when we were learning about the civil war, when she was about to leave, we began a class.

She told the two most popular girls in the class, who were also the two most attractive and ranked among her favorites, to do to two pages of reading we would be getting through... in the back of the room, while cleaning and organizing the bookshelf. (They failed to do anything at all to the bookshelf.) Then she would ask the rest of us questions, as usual, but unlike her usual, she would award us with candy when we got a right answer.

I noticed from my oh-so-scientific analysis (there were only about ten kids in the class, so I could look at everyone and count) that essentially everyone else got four, five or six pieces of candy. (I think someone got three.) I know that I never missed a question. By the end, I had two pieces. When the best friends of the two popular girls spoke up for them, their candies were confiscated and they were asked no more questions.

At the end of class, it was revealed that this was a social experiment meant to demonstrate what the civil war was like. The two girls had been warned ahead of time. The kids who had ineffectually spoken up were praised as abolitionists and one girl who hadn't said anything told the teacher that she had been secretly helping the girls to keep track of where we were. She was told she would have been in the underground railroad. The supposedly "mistreated" girls were then given better candies than anyone else.

A better experiment would have been if I were (without warning, which wrecks the experiment) subjected to similar treatment, with that treatment having an obvious benefit to the rest of the class. See how many of them would stick up for someone they didn't like being forced to do something they wanted done. Seriously, it wasn't people who mistreat likable people for fun versus people who think that's wrong; it was people who mistreated members of the out-group to sustain their lifestyle versus people who thought that was wrong.

Feel free to leave comments on the actual video too, sounds like teacher problems are more common than I thought.

The reason I never told was because when it's kid vs teacher the teacher plays the "troubled kid" card. Once that card is played no matter what you do or say it plays into that.

My experiences with this are virtually the same as my experiences with bullying: I avoided confrontations and when unavoidable managed to dissuade them from taking negative action towards me by being, as my brother calls it, "my unnerving self" whatever that means.

Like I said in my comment to your other video (my username on youtube is nelzevir if you want to check), I was more of an observer in school. Neither teachers nor students paid me much notice, something I didn't mind in the least. Bar a few exceptions to teachers, mostly new ones, who wanted me to "use my full potential".
That's not to say I never engaged in discusion with my teachers, far from it actually, but from my side there was never any ill intent nor did these confrontations stem from a need to rebel. Mostly they were regarding assignments that I deemed incapable of teaching me anything (ie: bookreports about irrelevant topics, preparing presentations to be read infront of the class). Those were the ones I instigated, the ones the teachers started were usually about my lack of effort and "wasted potential" (I've grown to resent such statements because of these arguements).

Back when I was in primary school (elementary). I had one teacher push me in the back so hard that I almost broke my nose on the table, just because of some kids telling the teacher lies saying that I have swore in which I didn't.

And on another occasion, I was sitting on the floor with the rest of the class just keeping quiet and the a kid shouted that I swore. I received 5 days of back breaking labor as punishment.

Okay, so this turned out extremely long, but parents please bear with me.

My problems with teachers were most notable in the 4th and 5th grade. When I was in the 3rd grade, that school year went stellar. I had a teacher that was willing to accommodate me and educate the other kids on my tourettes and OCD diagnoses (AS was unheard of in the US in 1990) and my teacher already had a zero tolerance policy on bullying before I came into her class. I had outbursts and acted out and the teacher and class rolled with it.

When i got to 4th grade I got a teacher who spent much of her career teaching 1st grade and was very old and burnt out, and she just got switched to 4th grade that year. I found myself in a bizarre situation of having the 4th graders more understanding and accommodating than the teacher. This teacher didn't now how to handle this older class than she's used to and she was very strict and mean. She yelled at the kids a lot and was starting to wear some of us down emotionally from it. This teacher then implemented a system of "privileges". Basically the kids with the lowest privileges had to ask permission to do anything and had to stay inside for part of recess, while the kids at the top of the chart could do just about anything they wanted; up to and including walking out of the classroom to get a drink or go to the bathroom whenever they wanted (keep in mind that this is 9-10y/o's). Few kids' positions on the chart ever changed much. Basically I took a issue with my friends being bullied by the teacher and my friends not doing anything about it because they were taught to obey adults, and I stood up for everyone. I got in a lot of trouble for it and ended up getting sent to the resource room all day to do my work and work with the resource specialist who actually knew how to accommodate me. Having me spend more than half my class time in the resource room was illegal but nobody was complaining. The schoolwork was easy so I had lots of time to spend in the computer lab in the same room. I developed some pretty impressive computer skills for a 9-10y/o in 1991-92. That is one of the 3 good memories from that school year: that, my friends, and the trip by train to San Juan Capistrano. They tried giving me a personal aide but that just made things worse. I had someone second guessing everything I did when what I really needed was my space. I fought constantly with them and went through 3 of them in a semester. I even had attitude to rival this one black lady that was a substitute aide for me once. By the end of that school year I had been labeled a behavior problem with ADD and was dumped in special ed even though I had a 3.8 GPA.

In the 5th grade I was at a new school wit a special ed program and I only retained 1 friend from 3rd and 4th grade. I was alone at school. Once again I got an even older, even more burnt out teacher (who this time was a hothead) and she had an assistant with an attitude problem and probably personality problems. I learned next to nothing there unless I researched it on my own, except for the time I was mainstreamed in science. We had a lot of coloring assignments related to various history and science lessons. Coloring is fine but not in place of a textbook. Then for "vocabulary building" we had to copy the definition of words by rote from the dictionary and list the page number. I have ADD and dysgraphia, so yeah right. I already knew half that dictionary by memory so I just wrote the definitions down from memory to save time and frustration. When my teacher confronted me on this I'd try to explain my situation and that I already knew all this (I was given 6th and 7th grade vocabulary too) and she would always eventually say "WELL THAT'S JUST TOUGH!", and for me that was fight'n words (well, not physically).

Then there was this psychologist lady that came in and did this "group therapy" (for lack of a better word) that was more suitable for preschool or kindergarten. One time I eventually got sent to the principals office and I ranted about how stupid it was while I was on my way out the door. I got suspended for that, and it taught me a precedent that there was nothing I could do to stand up for myself that wouldn't get me in trouble, so the gloves were off then. Near the end of the year tensions between me and her were so high that she was physically afraid of me (I was bigger than her by then). About a month before school let out I got in a fight with a kid and hit him so hard in the stomach he was doubled over for a long time and had to go to the nurse, which was quite a feat for being 5'3"-5'4" and weighing 68lbs. I had an eating disorder-NOS at the time but that's another story. The principal said she was tired of seeing me in her office 2-3 times a week and put me on home-hospital study. No tutor was ever assigned to me so it was basically early summer break. Once again, this was illegal but nobody was complaining. I was accused of stealing a bunch of stuff, which I didn't, and I was sent to middle school without a graduation ceremony and with a 0.0 GPA. I had a stellar special ed middle school teacher lined up for the 6th grade (and all his skills would be needed) and I'm still in touch with him today, and I'm now 28.

My 1 close friend moved away in the middle of the 6th grade. In that period between 5th grade through middle school is a crucial period in a kid's social development and I missed out on it. I was never able to make up those social skills because that window of opportunity was gone. I was never able to re-connect with my friends from the 3rd and 4th grade during middle school and high school (we were back in the same schools together again). They turned out to be very popular and I was a loner that had earned a letterman's jacket (I played the tuba in marching band) and I was best known as "_____'s brother" because my younger brother was very popular and was even nominated for homecoming king. To this day my social circles are always tiny and I have tons of trouble making new friends, and relationships are nonexistent. I had tons of trouble making friends before the 3rd grade as well but that 3rd grade teacher gave me a golden opportunity to fix that and it was ruined by people who shouldn't have been teaching and by people who seemed to think their credentials were a substitute for listening to parents and a substitute for common sense. I will always wonder how much of this could have been prevented if I had been able to sit in on meetings about me and have some input about what is going on or at least be heard out rather than getting talked about behind my back and dictated to?

Parents, worry about social skills more than academics. The academics can always be made up in remedial classes in junior college (and they often do a better job of it too). Social skills are extremely hard to catch up on. If they focus on academics first and then work on social skills later, their peers' social skills will have already undergone another drastic transformation and left them behind a second time.

The stories on here show exactly how unfair it is not to assess teachers for psychological issues.

It's also clear to see that most members of the human race are gutless.
I'm not gutless personally, but I am a doormat, unless I get provoked, so I can be perceived as gutless. However, I expect that if I got into a rage with weapons, the person on the receiving end would have no choice but to take me down permanently.

Anyway, my point is, those teachers and of course the pupils, will not rock the boat.

There are not many people who will stand up for the downtrodden. If they are men, then they will be more likely to stand up for a pretty woman than an ugly or "weird" one. It's just such obvious creep tactics.

All of the hollywood films show such glorious actors/actresses standing up against alien forces, corruption and many more issues, but I doubt in real life that so many would stand up and be counted, if they knew that they would die for their resistance or would maybe be severely hurt/repressed/pointed out.

I am well against the fakery that the media etc has created.

Many people are guilty of choosing "friends" based on looks, viewpoint or wealth/what they can do for them.

The psycho teachers don't get reported when they should. These bullies are usually quite clever, so you have to use clever tactics to catch them.

I remember a situation at my school where I tipped the iceberg.
As I was the last one to tip it, I took the brunt but no one else. My example shows how weak one teacher was and how militant the sargeant major stereotype was.

Scenario.

In science class.
A teacher, 35, man, bit of a gut with an excess nasal voice (I mention this for a reason) was teaching us modular science (ie. drop out course for those who mess around)
13-14 year old boys only catholic school (year 1998) in the UK.
We were all talking, and I'm pretty good at that.
Teacher was getting stirred because he had already gained weak status, so was being exploited lol.
One pupil made a nasty comment about "dodgy solonoids" because of his voice or something like that.
I missed the point where teacher was getting really steamed up.
Most people had stopped talking, but I just said a bit more and he snapped.
We had microscopes in wooden boxes on our desks. He whacked mine on the floor because he lost it.
SSooooooo, I think he sent me outside the room, which I did not deny.

Sergeant major twat head of year was doing his rounds and saw me and he asked what happened. I told him I got sent outside, he said go to my office.
He did his SM act on the class, which shut them up because he has a loud voice LOL pathetic really. Lose your rag and people listen......pathetic.

Both teacher and SM reach SM's office.
I get grilled, SM says something about the cane being banned lol. Poor him, I bet he'd love to bloody my butt.
I just mentioned facts as I saw them. "blah blah called teacher dodgy solonoids etc" but I still got the grilling, because I was talking, the personal insults person did not, I think.

I should have told them both to f off really and I don't really care what some SM and squeaky voice weak man say.

Anyway, I just got grilled and that was it I think.
Maybe I did better than I think.
Shouting though, to gain fear, how pathetic.

I had a teacher in 8th grade that liked to single me out and harass me because I transferred into his class midway through the year and he didn't like who I made friends with. My response was two pronged, on the one hand I had my parents file a complaint with the district and wave my disability card around (at the time they thought I was dyslexic), while I embarked on an epic campaign of harassment. I really did some of my best work on that guy, I rewired all the electrical appliances in his class to short out when plugged in, I superglued things to other things they weren't supposed to be attached to, I I'd steal the cranks off the pencil sharpeners and the take the knobs off the door, I just went to town. Needless to say he had a strong suspicion about who was responsible for all of the havoc, but I never got caught and was always the picture of innocence in his presence. After my parents complaint advanced and I'd been screwing with him for a couple of months, his entire attitude towards me changed and he just ignored me in class, so I ended my harassment plotting and managed to make it out of his class with a B. I went on to have a relatively uneventful high school experience because my alternative school was so accommodating that I had no reason to cause trouble, I only misbehaved when provoked.

Honestly, I've come across teachers that represent both sides of this issue whether, it was people whom thought that if you did not learn things in the way the istructor had taught it then, it was your eternally damned fault.. However; some teachers did take a more broad view approach to such and tried to instruct in a manner that anyone could learn nt and as alike..Well, these days I try not to remember my time of such for it was not that happy nor would I wish to burden or bother anyone with such mundane matters..

Hiya everyone,

Yea well my kids ARE BEING BULLIED by two teachers in particular. They take it in turns. So far my son David who is the savant guitarist that some of you may have already seen? Here is a link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-Cx9-wlb- And remember he has only been playing a year and half! He has been banned from playing his guitar, told he has to sit in 100 minute lessons (he falls asleep), told he has to wear his tie done up and his top button done up with his shirt tucked in and his RED jumper on (he has sensory integration disorder). If he doesn't have a top button - he gets told he has to sew his bottom button on the top (he has dyspraxia!). He is currently ungraded in Maths so rather than encourage him, he gets pulled out of a lesson for 2hrs and chastised about his top button!! Now I had to take him to the Consultant Pyschiatrist for the first time in 3yrs to be further diagnosed with OCD (handwashing) a result of the intense stress he is going through in school.

Kids are NOT allowed IN school during breaks, lunch or before school - the doors are locked although yesterday I was told that the statemented kids could get a pass into LSU.

One child I advocate for who has a Dx of ADHD and associated other conditions told a teacher he was a w..... . The next day he was moved without consultation to a Pupil Referral Unit - effectively excluded (I have since kicked off and stopped this, although 3 other kids have already gone there without my knowing).

Then our INCLUSION room is more like SEGREGATION. Children are sent there and guarded!! They are not allowed to lunch, break or toilet without an escort - their punishment for exhibiting their core deficits. They can be in there for up to a week! Then what about the informal illegal exclusions where children are excluded from computer access (which technically locks them out of every lesson except PE or Drama). Parents don't get told, they don't get informed. They have no say in any of it.

So now kids in our school are protesting. A facebook hate campaign on the deputy head from hell, kicking off outtside the school gates at the total carnage of rule changes (yes this head has only been here since Jan and already it is a disaster zone). It doesn't reassure me much to find out the Heads wife is SENCO at another school locally!! ! Seems the SEN code of Practice has not even been read in our school.

So there we have it, a secondary mainstream school who in my opinion is abusing children particularly those on the Autism Spectrum. If this was a woman two doors down, they would have Child Protection there in a heartbeat - however this is happening in a school so it has to be a 'complaint' - ITS A JOKE. A sick one at that.

And yes I am dobbing everyone in this time. Already one of my children has been damaged by a headteacher in the past, now we see it happening again. Adaptability and Flexiblity!! ! Yea right.

Very angry jelibean as you can see

Thanks for allowing me to vent.

When did teachers become doctors? The world may never know.

I was in school in the 80's they did not have aspergers. I was diagnosed with adhd but the special education teachers knew I did not like to have people sit close to me, be touched, and to make eye contact. I always had trouble with math. This one special education teacher believed the only way to get me to listen to her was to grab me by the chin to wrench my head in her direction so I could look into her face while she teaches me. I screamed into her face let go of me. I could never consintrate in her classroom ever again because I was afraid she was going to grab my face again.