A few years ago I realized

[conuly]

that I had the biggest problem in school with my English teachers. A truly disproportionate number of them simply didn't like me, way more than all other subject teachers.

If I'd figured this out in college or high school or middle school I'd probably be over it by now, but I didn't and since I did figure it out every once in a while I am struck by the question - "seriously, but why?"

If it was all subject teachers equally I'd say maybe it was me, and that's fair, I didn't do any actual work most of the time because reasons. But no, most of my other teachers got along with me just fine, or at least were willing to be professional about it. But man, some of my English teachers seem to have actually had a grudge against me or some shit, with the exception of the sonnet one, who was just incompetent. (Seriously, who has kids read their work aloud without pre-checking it first to make sure they aren't cheerfully and very obviously insulting their classmates? I can't even be mad at him, he was just terrible at teaching.)

I wish I'd realized it sooner or else never. I won't be able to get any answers to this mystery now, of course, and it just bugs me.

Comments

[lilysea]

Huh, interesting.

I usually got on GREAT with my English teachers,

but all my PE teachers hated me because I was clumsy/uncoordinated.

[greenwoodside]

Yes, this was me. Still fond memories of the English teachers. Still dimly hate at a distance one particular PE teacher (and all school PE).

[conuly]

I was super uncoordinated and also gyms were vastly overstimulating to me, but my gym teachers all thought I was an exciting challenge, I guess. Never had trouble with them!

[lilysea]

One PE teacher yelled at me really harshly all lesson for not throwing the ball right in softball/T ball

and then when I ***finally*** managed to throw the ball it went straight at the teacher

who was very VERY pregnant and sitting in a folding chair right behind the catcher

and hit her in the stomach

and the teacher refused to believe that it was an accident

(it genuinely was an accident, I was nowhere near coordinated enough to have done it on purpose, it was all I could do to get the ball vaguely within hitting distance of the bat)

[lilysea]

A different PE teacher gave me a world of grief for wearing a tshirt over my bathers in swimming lessons because

a) I sunburned very easily

b) I was being bullied about my body by other kids

and the teacher was like "if you're ashamed of your body, you shouldn't wear a tshirt, you should lose weight!!!"

While I was considered fat by the other kids, I wasn't actually over my recommended weight/height

(this was during the time of Callista Flockhart and Kate Moss)

[lilysea]

And then there were all the PE teachers who yelled at me when I got a stitch or ran out of breath while running laps

and had to stop running and start walking

[conuly]

Well, they all absolutely sound lovely.

[conuly]

Don't get me wrong, I didn't enjoy gym class, but I never had a problem with the teachers. Or with my classmates, either - not in gym, anyway.

[calimac]

You may have something here. The two high school teachers I hated the most were both English teachers. But it wasn't that they hated me, but that they insisted on things that I hated.

But of the two teachers I remember most fondly, one was also an English teacher. The other, history.

I had no problem with PE teachers. One of them gave me permission to get out of PE entirely, as long as I kept a record of how much bicycling I'd been doing (which was a fair amount).

[smokingboot]

Ooh, teachers who hate! One (maths nun) cracked me across the face, which prompted a visit from my father who reminded her that she was twice my size, just as he was twice hers... and 'you wouldn't like it if I did that to you, now would you Sister?' She saw his reasoning and never went near me again.

The other was a maths/music teacher who sneered at my dyscalculia and told me I had an unnatural voice 'like a boy.'

Both of these were, I think, frustrated by my inability in their specialist subjects. Or mad old bats who shouldn't have been let anywhere near children.

[conuly]

No complaints about my inability in English classes - which, honestly, you'd think I'd be a cinch for given I'd been reading on a post-graduate level since elementary school! (But no, at least one teacher complained that I chose to read at my age level rather than, idk, burrowing through Kafka.)

Unless we're counting the seventh grade English teacher who was angry about my handwriting and declared she wouldn't accept any more work from me unless I wrote in cursive. No offers to help me learn cursive, though at that point in my life it would've been a continued exercise in frustration all around, which is why I hadn't learned it. I handed in blank spelling tests for two weeks and she never said a word about my handwriting again.

[conuly]

Also, both those teachers are probably dead of old age now, but if not, they should be ashamed.

[smokingboot]

One definitely dead, the other most likely so. People from a different time and background but still, it was a salutary lesson, watching that nun be wary around me (and other kids) ever afterwards. She knew. I think bullies often know.

Yours sound like various bags of dcks. Sometimes it's just plain inexplicable what turns people so off.

[cactuswatcher]

I had a history teacher junior year in high school who told the whole class that I personally would never do well in college, because she thought the notes I'd taken were too messy. My grad school professors might well have disagreed with her about my doing poorly in college. Yes, it was a problem with me being able to listen and write at the same time. Something like dyslexia for writing. I could make out my notes just fine. If she'd asked me to give a summary of the class the day before from my notes, she might have been surprised. But generally she was a young, old bat who kids who'd had her in years before me complained about loudly for various reasons.

[cactuswatcher]

In all honesty, I had to do the 'no printing' rule when I was teaching Russian. The thing is, you see handwritten printing in Russian very rarely, and when I was teaching individual studies everything was typed out for the students ahead of time including the tests. They never saw me write on the board. I was pretty sure they wouldn't have a prayer of reading standard Russian cursive. Generally the next time I saw the kids I told the rule to, they were all smiles and said how cool Russian cursive was. But I'm sure that right after I told them they had to use cursive they were pretty unhappy with me. (I usually print everything but my signature in English, and always write cursive in Russian.)

[chasing_silver]

Many teachers in the era we went to school in didn't like neurodivergent kids because we weren't "the norm" and therefore they had to put in more effort. My teachers didn't like me until high school because I daydreamed and lost focus too much. I also was the kid everyone picked on, so they had to deal with my parents asking what the school was going to do to stop the literal physical bullying on their grounds daily.

[chasing_silver]

Learning Russian cursive actually was tough, but a really awesome challenge for me. (I can, but don't write cursive in English because printing is easier)

[conuly]

This explanation still doesn’t explain why I selectively had trouble with English teachers. (I mean, there was somebody in every subject! But in English it was just about all of them!)

[greenwoodside]

The thing when talking about bad experiences at school with teachers or otherwise is that it seems to elicit something like Munch's The Scream from the audience. I know this summer I very embarrassingly started crying during 1-2-1 practice for a speaking exam when the questioner prompted a with a little too much interest about the transition to secondary school. This stuff just never seems to go away.

But aaaanyway...rereading your post, I think it's most likely that your English teachers felt insecure themselves and maybe jealous and weren't self-aware enough to hide it.

[conuly]

Well, that's a satisfying interpretation of their behavior!

[greenwoodside]

:)

Not intended as flattery though, just lack of an obvious other cause!

[smokingboot]

You wouldn't do well in college because your notes were too messy? What, has she never read a doctor's prescription? Seriously, I do wonder about a few of these teachers. If they hate the profession when they're young, it's going to drive them mad by retirement.

[conuly]

I believe very strongly that if the Anglo sphere thinks children should handwrite in cursive then we should do what other people do and teach cursive before print.

[gwydion]

When I started teaching my mother sent me boxes of my K-12 report cards and papers. I went through them. I absolutely believed more that half of my 2nd-8th grade teachers hated me. I'd been told over and over I was paranoid.

Reading them over I was completely vindicated. They said horrible shit to and about me that I would never say to or about a child.

The why's of it are a whole fucking saga, too complicated to explain. Short version, my 2nd grade teacher was selfish, incompetent and malevolent and she basically set things up so that the teachers I had for gym all the way through ninth were invested in harming me as well as my third grade teacher. I arrived in 4th grade furious and mostly silent and about half the teachers spent 4th-9th punishing me for being scapegoated and traumatized.

Sometimes this shit happens, unfortunately.

What I'm saying is it's not necessarily your fault. Sometimes teachers are just assholes with near absolute power over kids in their room and they use it to poison the waters in their reach.