High School Teacher from Hell

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>I want to offer an account of my experience in a Asian high school and invite American peers to judge it. The thing has puzzled me for quite a long time, and I wonder what the opinions of the world’s most advanced people are.
My English teacher was a twentysomething young woman who tried very hard to maintain order and discipline both in and out of classroom. Sometimes that annoys me, and her lesson is extremely boring, with her speaking fluently, incessantly for 120 minutes, ALONE. But being a foreign student, I had some difficulty in communicating with her. So I rather kept quiet.<br>
But the things changed irreversibly on a day in Jan 2004. After a day’s lessons, I was very tired and exhausted. I just endured her 2 hour long monologue lesson, and, thinking of another 2 hour of chem practical to go before going home, was obviously not in a good mood. Just when we were streaming out of the computer lab, the b**** started urging people to clean the board.
“WHO WILL CLEAN THE BOARD?” and her audience is a bunch of 17-18 years old youngsters. “A? B? C?” she asked 3 boys next to me, but was ignored. Then she said my name.
I tried to ignore her. But she persisted, and called my name again. The air was a bit tense. I didn’t reply. I don’t mind doing a favor. But the way she put it was disgusting beyond decription: “ XXX (my name), CLEAN THE BOARD!” with a snarl, and uttered in such an authoritative way as if I were her dog. I felt my dignity being trampled. I said: “Wait----“And started moving to the door. But she wasn’t buying it and got angry at my not obeying her “order” and repeated again and again.
I was in a dilemma. Either I obey her like I used to, but with my dignity sacrificed; or I disobey her but risk facing unknown consequences. The reason why I’m afraid of unknown consequences is that I was not accustomed to disobeying teacher, and had to the best of my knowledge seldom, if ever, done so in my entire academic life. (And such is the case for most of my peers). So my mind was swimming, while I shouted “Wait!” repeatedly, and the teacher got more and more angry.
In the end, I decided to clean the board. Had I known the dire consequences of giving up to a vicious teacher, I would never have done it. Just when I finished, the bitch told me to stay and she wanted to talk to me. After driving my classmates out of the room, she started an one hour long tirade accusing me of committing a lot of fanciful crimes. “Extremely rude, selfish, arrogant, self-centered, no respect for other people, etc”. Then she said these classical words, in response to my claim that I and she were equal:
“You and I are NOT equal. You are my subordinate.”
That hit a nerve in me, for equality of all human beings was the foundation of all my moral values. So I tried to argue with her, but my attempts at speech were constantly cut short by “Shut up!” and “Don’t talk!” I thought that had infringed upon my freedom of speech.
Whenever I approached her to argue more heatedly, she told me to back off, cos I “invaded her privacy” and she’s “afraid of me”.
She finally accused me of wasting one-hour of her time, not forgetting to suggest that I should be ashamed of my selfishness if I thought otherwise, i.e. that she had wasted 1 hour of MY time
So being unable to speak for myself, the experience proved to be extremely traumatic to me. The worst casualty was my say, world view. I have been raised up in a culture where “individual rights” is a totally unheard-of concept. Only recently, when I went abroad, did the concept of “rights” and “equality” enter my philosophy. However, these concepts being very new and young to me, I still have some doubts against them. And the encounter with that hell teacher sort of confirmed some of the doubts, and deeply shook my beliefs in them. Thus, for the rest of the year, I lived a not very happy life. Cos, deep in my heart, I do not know whether I was right, or she.
So I contrived a final resolution: involve an external jury. You are one of the jury, and could judge on the the following issues that I feel are the core points of doubt:
1. Do I have the right NOT to clean the board?
2. Is her claim “You and I are NOT equal. You are my subordinate.” Justifiable?
3. Is her claim that I’m a self-centered, rude person based on just the fact that I refuse to clean the board justifiable?</p>

<pre><code>Your comments are extremely welcome and appreciated.
</code></pre>

<p>Schub</p>

2

<p>Is she by any chance a 27-28 year old redhead?</p>

3

<p>Christ, cleaning the board was hardly an affront to your personal dignity. This happened in January of 2004, almost a year ago, and you're still mad about it? Get over it, dude. </p>

<p>Also, I hate to burst your self-righteous little bubble, but your description of the event makes you look borderline psychotic. She told you she was afraid of you, and that you were invading her personal space? Two words: anger management.</p>

<p>You were the student, she was the teacher, therefore you are subordinate to her. What a novel concept. </p>

<p>Next time, just wash the stupid board, and don't bother starting some ridiculous epic grudge against a teacher because she asked you to do one simple thing.</p>

4

<p>Jesus christ on a pogo stick, just clean the damn board and get on with your life. It isn't going to kill you.</p>

5

<p>I vote that you do have a right not to clean the board. Yes technically you are her subordinate, but only to a certain extent. She, as a hired public servant is granted certain powers over you, and it is legal for her to make you clean the board. However, her claim that you are a subordinate doesn't give her a moral justification to make you do her work for her.<br>
Her comments to you are totally unjustifiable, both in the premise that you are a bad person because you wouldn't clean her board, and in the big fuss she made over it - lecturing you for an hour. Still, can't let the ***holes get you down.</p>

6

<p>aye aye, transfer. well put.</p>

7

<p>Schub, are you asian by any chance?</p>

8

<p>I guess i see things differently than everyone else in the sense that i don't see your actions as out of line. I would say if she asked you to clean the board on HER classtime it would be a justifiable demand, but once the bell rings and you have other obligations to attend to, she has no power over you. I also think that you and the teacher are equal, but that's kind of a cultural thing. Over there, it's possible you are her subordinate. As far as three goes, I think she was just ****ed no one would clean her board for her. :p</p>

9

<p>Being asked to clean a chalkboard changed your "worldview"?</p>

<p>It must have been rock solid.</p>

10

<p>Maybe she had him clean the board naked, while singing some Frank Sinatra? That might change his world view...</p>

11

<p>I agree with phlogiston...if a teacher really is that rude to you, I will not clean their stupid board. But in that case above, if the teacher had just said "One of you guys, A, B, or C, clean the board." (ABC being names of people) and you happened to be C, I'd just clean the board. But NOT when a teacher is deliberately and obviously being rude to you. Hey, if you hate the student, at least make it subtle, geez.</p>

<p>And to everyone else who said to just clean the board, if you were in that position, you probably would have been shocked at the teacher's tone of voice and perhaps not cleaned the board either.</p>

12

<p>yes i would have. a teacher's a teacher, and you're supposed to do what a teacher tells you to.</p>

13

<p>Hey I'm in the minority but I would not clean that board if she talked that way to me. I feel sorry for those who think they are a subordinate of any other human being. Congrats schub for seeing this unfairness.</p>

<p>If she had asked him nicely, in class, to please clean the board, he, out of courtesy, should have done so. But if one actually read carefully into his story, one would see the complete lack of respect of the teacher towards the student.</p>

<p>However, if this is a private school, I believe her powers are implied in paying for the school and its disciplinarian system. Even though it is unfair in either situation, being in a public school would give you more power over this situation. She would really have no control over you.</p>

14

<p>um... first of all i'd have to say that you SHOULD just clean the board... its such a triviality.
and i think you have a skewed view of equality. equality isn't "everyone should treat everyone else the same." generally people treat the people they don't like worse. and that's the way it should be. even martin luther king jr. said that he wished people were judged by their character. and if you ARE "arrogant" like your teacher claims you to be, might you not consider that your teacher is right? and that she picked on you because of those certain personality traits?
you MIGHT be right, you MIGHT be wrong, but you should look at the situation from your teacher's point of view also. if i asked you to do something, and you said "wait" but did absolutely nothing (as your story suggests), i would be pretty ****ed too.</p>

15

<p>you got traumatized over cleaning a board lol</p>

16

<p>i think teacher's can be idiots and we shouldn't always do what they say. this would be one of those cases</p>

17

<p>LOL!! Just clean the thing and be quiet. Why do you have to involve all this drama? Your family isn't being attacked by rabid dogs. In life, there are plenty of people like this teacher of yours. You just have to stay strong and accept that fact. You're going to get yourself in trouble if you keep trying to pick fights with these morons.</p>

18

<p>It's unfair and I'm sure it feels like ****, but unfortunately, she, as a teacher, can probably try to make your life miserable in some way shape or form; and she'll probably succeed in doing it.</p>

<p>I think you should have cleaned the board courteously, and THEN went to the higher authorities and told them about the problem. You would have had a claim if you have done so.</p>

<p>If you were being equally rude and intruding her personal matter, than you just blew it. It's equally as your fault as hers.</p>

19

<p>You just need to stay with the system, man.</p>

20

<p>You should have asked why you were being forced to clean the board and not the people A, B and C. If you’re a minority, you should also call her out on discrimination.</p>