My first real teacher (besides pre-k) was emotionally vulnerable in front of me and she made unfair attempts to reprimand me which contributed to my skepticism about the role and integrity of educators.
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Misguided Relationships: My relationships with teachers
I went to preschool when I was three and four years old, but I did not go to school too much because my mom was a stay-at-home mom, so she would keep me at home with her and teach me.
When I entered kindergarten I already knew how to read, and write. I was writing in cursive and print.
When I started kindergarten I believed that teachers were people to look up to and I admired their profession, but as time went on I learned at a young age that teachers are only people and they arent people to be guided by fully.
My kindergarten teacher had a son who was my age and I believe she wanted to compare me and him.
I was a smart, quiet, well-behaved child, and she would make up things to get me in trouble. What did I do when I got in trouble? I would cry my eyes out. Why would I cry my eyes out?
Because I wanted to do the right thing for myself, society, and God (I was in a private Christian school). I would cry so much that they would have to call my parents. What are the things I would get in trouble for? She would say I was talking to girls during nap time, and I wasn’t.
These girls all liked me and would scoot their mats towards mine and talk to me and I would ignore them, but she would try to blame me even though you could hear little girls talking to me and me not responding.
She accused me of cheating on my math HW because she said my number 5 looked too good to be written by a kindergarten student. So after class my parents came in and she had to watch me with my parents write the number 5 on paper multiple times and to her astonishment it was me writing that number.
Also, the thing that she did that hurt me the most, that I loved reading and writing at a young age, was she put me in the lowest reading group when I was reading better than the highest reading group.
Even the kids would ask me why I wasn’t in the higher reading group, and she didn’t put me in the higher reading group until the last quarter of the year (I was reading chapter books by then and the books in class were like 15 pages with one sentence on them).
I am not a teacher but not that I am older I feel that it might have been wrong to openly tell a bunch of 5-year-olds that you are the low readers and you are the high readers and separate us.
Now there are other examples but you get the gist of it.
The icing on the cake that would make me question the concept of teachers and their roles in society at a young age would be seeing my teacher cry.
It would be multiple times a week and my mom would stay after school to help my teacher clean up and set up class for the next day. I would be in the classroom with my little brother who I would help take care of and play with him until we had to leave.
On multiple occasions, my teacher would be talking to my mom and then start crying and telling her how awful all the teachers were to her at the school and about other life concepts.
Seeing my teacher cry at such a young age revealed to me that they are only human and it made me question them (authority) on what they thought was right and wrong. She tried to get me in trouble for things I know she knew I didn’t do; in my head it made me question her morals and her leadership. I thought to myself this can’t be all teachers.
My first real teacher (besides pre-k) was emotionally vulnerable in front of me and she made unfair attempts to reprimand me which contributed to my skepticism about the role and integrity of educators.
These incidents humanized teachers for me but also made me question their authority and judgments. These experiences planted seeds of doubt in my mind about the reliability and morality of those in positions of power and education.
If this was my only incident with teachers in my life then I would say that I am being over dramatic, but sadly it isn’t. From elementary to high school, and even college I have similar stories of teachers which ultimately led me to feel misguided in the concept of society that is supposed to make me feel guided: Education.
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