Toxic Teachers

Dear All,

There was a teacher that I had in high school; she taught French. Even now if and when I see her she still feels the need to place us in a hierarchy, with her on the top. She was a highly acclaimed teacher, no doubt that she was good. What I remember about her though is her arrogance even twenty years later; it galls me. Sometimes I think about her in the middle of the night when I should be asleep. After I am done writing about this, I will forget her arrogance, petty cruelty, and the fact that she put me down in front of other students because I "...wasn't doing as well as I should have been".

I transferred to her class from another. I actually fell back half a year to get away from this other teacher who was a really bad teacher. He sounded as though he was speaking French with an American accent. Some might say that he sounded Canadian and that the Canadian accent is a perfect legitimate accent. If he had learned French in Canada, he would have sounded Canadian when speaking English as well. He, in fact, did not. Thus, to me he sounded like an American who couldn't speak French very well, yet was teaching it. I was told my new French teacher would be much better because she was award-winning.

From the moment I arrived in her class she hounded me. She made me sit in the front of the classroom. If I didn't have my homework, she would go through my bag in front of the class. If it was only partially done, she would hold it up in front of the class to show them how much better I could have done. I remember one particular time when she did this. I was so humiliated. I noticed however that the class was paralysed with shock. They were all looking at each other, shrugging their shoulders. Some were laughing and shaking their heads. She was oblivious to this because she was a woman on a mission. I saw it and drew strength from it. They were on my side because what she was doing was so outrageous.

Another time, I had to memorize some of the French libretto to Carmen for a competition at a local college. Here is some of it:

L'amore est un oiseau rebel
Love is like a rebellious bird
Que nous ne peus apprivoisee
One which no one can catch
Et c'est bien en vain qu'on l'apelle
One may call the bird in vain
Si lui convient de refusee
If it suits him to refuse

L'un ni fait, manace ou priere
Nothing works, threats or prayers
L'un parle bien, l'autre se tait
One speaks well, the other holds silent
Et c'est l'autre que je prefere
And it is the other that I prefer
Il n'a rien dit, mais il me plait
He says nothing, but he pleases me

I can't, at this point memorize anything, but I still remember that poem. In class, I gave her a word for word translation, and an idiomatic translation as well. She found fault with everything I did. Why? What could it possibly accomplish? No one else in that class could have done nearly as well as I did with that passage, and they said as much to me and to her later. It has taken me many years to try to understand her behavior. The fact that it continues into the present causing fresh wounds leads me to believe that it is a power play, and way of holding control over another so she doesn't have to feel out of control herself. She looks at me and says, "At least I'm not her".

I look back on her with loathing. People who have tried to get me to conform by using humiliation have always had their work cut out for them. She has actually been very helpful to me in my formation of my teaching style. I have never, and will never, ever, ever resort to cruelty or humiliation. She inhibited me from learning better by making an example of me. My students learn better than I did because they are not afraid to make mistakes.

One last thought- I don't have to be like her. This, in so many ways, is its own reward. I can say with some fervor, I don't have to go through my life with other people reacting to me as if I were her. She will neither know honest disagreement, from which she might improve herself, nor will she ever bring out the best in anyone as long as she relies on the whip and not the carrot.

Sincerely,
Betsy