God sometimes has the funniest ways of helping us to get past things in our lives that have weighed us down. Things that have been weighing us down a LONG TIME.
In my case, this has to do with teachers. There were several things that happened to me in my school days that caused me...not at the time but as a young adult looking back on my life...to have, let's say, not such a high regard for teachers. (The ones I respected the most actually seem to be the ones I had in the nine-month course I took at DeKalb Tech, now Perimeter College in the metro Atlanta area. Maybe that will be a later blog post.)
When I was a child and teenager, respect for your elders was huge. To the point where I always believed adults were right and if there was trouble, I certainly must be to blame. Case in point: When I was eleven years old and in the sixth grade, some of my close friends were, shall we say, blossoming. I, however, could still pass for a fourth grader and was highly self-conscious of this. I wanted desperately to look like some of these other girls, but it just wasn't that way. Therefore, I knew the boys were looking at these girls and not at me. If anything were to happen to betray to said boys the fact that nothing was happening in the way of physical maturity in my person, I would have just collapsed on the spot. I would have been mortified, so I tried to stay covered up. My mother made sure I was dressed appropriately when I left the house anyway, so there's that.
You know how when you were a child and you would really get into a project such as doing your school work or coloring a picture or whatever and you would forget where you were because all you could think about was what you were doing? Well, that happened to me in the sixth grade and I was all bent over my desk, apparently causing a, shall we say, wardrobe malfunction. The little dress I was wearing buttoned up the front and was a thick enough cotton that a slip was not necessary. Well, evidently the crouching over my paper caused a gap between two of the buttons. I noticed a little boy across from me looking at me and realized there was a problem. I'm sure inside I gasped but made little of it outwardly except to straighten up and continue my work.
Soon it was time for lunch and we all went to the lunchroom to eat. Afterwards my teacher told the boys to go back to the classroom and the girls to go to the gym. We were all very surprised. This never happened. We all wondered what was about to take place. I actually don't remember anything that was said at this "meeting" until my teacher reached over to me as I sat among my friends on the bleachers and jerked the dress apart between two buttons and exclaimed, "Just look there!" I immediately began to cry and she dismissed us back to the room. I don't think anyone ever said anything to me. Did they understand whatever it was that she had said? Did they think I was a bad girl? As I walked back to the room with my friends, I knew the boys would ask why I was crying, so I stopped at the water fountain and turned the water on so that it would shoot into my eyes. That way if any of them asked, I could say the water shot me in the face. No one asked. At least no one asked me. I don't know what might have been said among my girlfriends. In fact, I was so traumatized that before I got off the bus that afternoon, I had blocked it out of my memory. I didn't think of it again until I was grown and married. I'm not sure what triggered the memory, but I remembered it one day and told Mother. She was a bit aghast. She said if I had told her she would have "gone down there." Mother NEVER "went down there." So this must have hit her hard, too. I still loved this teacher because, as I said, the trauma sent me into a state of denial for years. Two or three other instances occurred, not nearly so traumatic but still enough to affect me. To wit:
When the end of seventh grade was approaching, we were given a form to take home to our parents. It offered them a chance to keep their child at Walker Park for eighth grade or send their child on to the eighth grade in town at the high school. Of course, I wanted to go there! But my mother had other thoughts. "You'll get more personal attention if you stay at Walker Park." I was crushed but, as I said, respect for elders was paramount, and I didn't argue. I didn't realize I could try to discuss it. I just obeyed. Mother later realized it was a bad decision.
Walker Park was a good place. First through eighth grades were there and it was a nice quiet place out in the country. I had started school there in first grade and so I stayed through eighth grade. I lived out in the country, so I rarely saw any of my friends. Pretty much never, actually. So when the first day of eighth grade approached I could hardly wait to go and see my friends again and see who had gone to the high school and who had stayed. I was not prepared for the sight. When I got settled in the room and realized everyone was there that was going to be there, again I was crushed. Many of my friends had gone to the high school. Some of them I never interacted with again. Actually, because of course lines taken, I don't even remember seeing any of them again until years after graduation. In the eighth grade that year, there was a handful of us that were friends and I was the most vocal. The most trouble I ever got into in twelve grades of school was that I talked too much. This was apparent to my eighth grade teacher and one day he declared that I was the ringleader of my tiny group. It stung a bit. It actually sort of made me angry. We weren't trouble. We just talked.
When I got into ninth grade, my first year in high school, my heretofore A's and B's turned into C's and D's except in French, Home Ec, and PE. It was just a horrible year. My mother realized her decision to allow me to stay at my old school in the eighth grade (for more "personal attention") rather than letting me go on to the high school for eighth grade was a bad move. Everything was new and strange and things were said that frightened me ("If you are late to class, you have to go to the principal's office".) I never went to the principal's office a day in my previous eight years except to relay a message from my father to the principal and to actually man the front desk while the principal went on errands outside the school! Whoever heard of that?! I hated doing that but they trusted me, so I didn't complain. I think my mother was very proud of the fact that they chose me for that. A trustworthy child is dear to a parent's heart. "A wise son makes a father glad..." Proverbs 10:1
So after I started getting C's and D's in Physical Science, one day the teacher stopped me as I was leaving class and said, "You used to make good grades at Walker Park, didn't you?" I confirmed that I had and expected him to say something else, something to help me. He didn't. Ever. He never asked me if there was a problem. He never offered to help me. He just let it slide. I knew he had to have had a concern and looked at my previous grades to have known that. I thought surely there would be some action forthcoming. There wasn't. He never mentioned it again.
That same year with C's and D's in Algebra, my mother finally decided to "go down there" and have a conference with my Algebra teacher to seek some sort of help. I don't know what happened at the meeting, but again nothing was said. Ever. He just let it slide. No offer of help.
In tenth grade I had a really nice General Math teacher (yes, I escaped further humiliation with Algebra, etc., by taking General Math for the other required math class) and trusted him and liked him. Still, I had matured only a little physically since sixth grade, and one of the good-looking and popular football players was in my class. There was a discussion of some sort one day during class and he called me Bird Legs right out in front of everyone. You're thinking the teacher called him on it, right? Nope. I just sat there mired up in humiliation. I knew I was underdeveloped. Did I need Mr. Perfect to point that out to the whole class? Not really, no. What I needed was for someone to defend me. The teacher should have at least made him apologize to me in front of everyone, but he didn't and I think I lost a little respect for him that day.
Teachers, what you say to little children (and bigger children) makes a huge difference in their lives. Maybe you think it's cute to call them "Meathead" or "Dimwit" or "Ya-Buncha-Goofballs" or some other derogatory name because the other kids will laugh. It's not cute and it's not cool and it's certainly not professional.
As I said, God has this funny way of helping us get past things. You're wondering what He did here for me, aren't you? Well, my daughter and her husband are BOTH teachers! So now I have to look at it from a little different perspective. Although my daughter is home schooling now. That should tell you something.
I've had a couple of significant surgeries over the decades. I got over them very nicely but there are tremendous glaring scars. Like these surgeries, the things these teachers did to me cut me deeply and viciously. I've forgiven them, but the scars live on.
