Graf #2

Worst Teacher

I was fortunate enough to go through school having
very good teachers. I was the quiet one who didn't
speak up much, but rather paid attention and took
in whatever they were teaching. So teachers either
hardly new I existed or liked me because I didn't
cause any trouble....Until one day in High School.

It was a day that I will never forget. The quiet girl
who caused trouble at school. I didn't realize I was
doing anything really wrong. I guess I did know it
was sneaky, but illegal is what the Principal
told me it was. I guess I was just tired of no one
listening to what the students were telling them, so
I took matters into my own hands.

I was a Junior that year. Our history teacher was
a very stern man. Right from the beginning of the
year, he scared me. As the year went on, he got worse.
He yelled a lot and swore constantly. It always
seemed to be directed towards the boys. It didn't
seem to bother the boys, of course. They just became
more defiant. As the months went on, he started
telling stories of war. He seemed to be going through
flash-backs of some sort. When he had these
spells, he became violent. Desks and chairs would fly
across the room. Boys were pinned against the wall. He
seemed to be getting worse. Kids kept warning other
teachers and the Principal of this man's behavior, but
only to be dismissed as overly dramatic teenagers.

Then I decided to prove that what the kids were telling
them was the truth. I figured the only way for them
to believe us, was to hear it for themselves. So I
brought a recorder to school and taped his class!
Yes, without permission. It didn't matter that on
the recorder was the teacher becoming violent.
Their only focus was that I taped the class. I found
myself in the Principal's office with the Principal
and the Assistant Principal threatening me. They
hovered over me like I was a hardened criminal. They
said they should call the police and have me arrested,
but didn't. I was yelled at for what seemed to be hours.
Whenever I tried to express my concern for what was
happening in that classroom I was told to not talk about
it. I was the only one who had done wrong. I was now
labeled. I was no longer the quiet girl who never caused
trouble. I was the girl who spoke up and shouldn't have.
I was told to never speak of this again, and they wouldn't
punish me. They wouldn't even call my parents. I was
so relieved to be "let go" I promised to never bring it up
again.

The following school year we came back to school to
discover that this teacher was not returning. It turned
out that he had an undetected tumor on his brain, that
was the cause of his flash-backs of his time in the
Vietnam War. He died that summer from the tumor.

Had someone listened to us that year, maybe things
would have turned out differently for that teacher.