Bruised and Battered
Last week I read a blurb on Twitter about a high school teacher who was in a bit of trouble for putting his hands on a kid. The story didn't go much into detail...it was just an AP post and you can't cover much in 140 characters, but it got me thinking.
In second grade the crazy nun hit me with a paddle every day. It didn't seem to do much good as I couldn't keep my big mouth shut so one day she made me pull my pants down and I was so horrified that the red head I liked was going to see my underwear that I cried.
40 some years later I can still picture that in my head.
I moved on to the 3rd grade where the style of beating was different. I didn't have a nun in charge that year and I thought that might help, but the slaps to the face were rough as well. I was talking to a buddy one day when his eyes grew wide as he looked over my right shoulder. I turned just in time to catch her ring under my left eye.
I was bleeding like Rocky during his fight with Mr. T.
The next recollection I have is being driven backwards into a doorknob by Sister Henriella. I dropped to my knees as my buddy Al wailed in laughter and then took a shot to his own solar plexus.
A couple of years ago I was at an old folks home for nuns and I saw Sister Henriella's name on the roster. I actually thought about going up and seeing if I could find her wandering near a doorknob.
The emotional scars we carry.
Yet that was sort of the way it went when we were kids. I never mentioned the beatings at home or I'd have heard it there too.
As I got older, of course, I sort of saw the teachers as they were. When you're a kid an authority figure is sort of a robotic fountain of knowledge. As you become an adult you notice that they are just like the rest of us, flawed and nonsensical, most of the time, and you take the knowledge they bring, and forget the rest.
Hell, it seemed that they moved on from beatings to sleeping with the kids after I'd left the program.
"How come I missed that wave? Where were the hot teachers who slept with their students when I was in school?" I asked my beautiful wife.
"They were sleeping with the non-nerds," she said.
So I guess I'll never know.
Yet I have done a lot of teaching through the years. I know how difficult it can be to reign in a bad student or to calm someone who wants to argue.
A few years ago in a creative writing class that students were paying me for I got into a bit of a pissing match with a woman who couldn't write a competent grocery list. I was trying to help her. She was just crazy.
And she made the experience unbearable.
I thought of Sister Henriella.
I considered a doorknob.
We made it through.
Years later, as I consider my own children and their educational experiences I make sure to tell them to be respectful, and I pray that the respect goes both ways because times have changed, and if someone in a place of authority extends a right cross, or compromises my child in any way there will certainly be hell to pay.
Because some of the scars don't heal.
In second grade the crazy nun hit me with a paddle every day. It didn't seem to do much good as I couldn't keep my big mouth shut so one day she made me pull my pants down and I was so horrified that the red head I liked was going to see my underwear that I cried.
40 some years later I can still picture that in my head.
I moved on to the 3rd grade where the style of beating was different. I didn't have a nun in charge that year and I thought that might help, but the slaps to the face were rough as well. I was talking to a buddy one day when his eyes grew wide as he looked over my right shoulder. I turned just in time to catch her ring under my left eye.
I was bleeding like Rocky during his fight with Mr. T.
The next recollection I have is being driven backwards into a doorknob by Sister Henriella. I dropped to my knees as my buddy Al wailed in laughter and then took a shot to his own solar plexus.
A couple of years ago I was at an old folks home for nuns and I saw Sister Henriella's name on the roster. I actually thought about going up and seeing if I could find her wandering near a doorknob.
The emotional scars we carry.
Yet that was sort of the way it went when we were kids. I never mentioned the beatings at home or I'd have heard it there too.
As I got older, of course, I sort of saw the teachers as they were. When you're a kid an authority figure is sort of a robotic fountain of knowledge. As you become an adult you notice that they are just like the rest of us, flawed and nonsensical, most of the time, and you take the knowledge they bring, and forget the rest.
Hell, it seemed that they moved on from beatings to sleeping with the kids after I'd left the program.
"How come I missed that wave? Where were the hot teachers who slept with their students when I was in school?" I asked my beautiful wife.
"They were sleeping with the non-nerds," she said.
So I guess I'll never know.
Yet I have done a lot of teaching through the years. I know how difficult it can be to reign in a bad student or to calm someone who wants to argue.
A few years ago in a creative writing class that students were paying me for I got into a bit of a pissing match with a woman who couldn't write a competent grocery list. I was trying to help her. She was just crazy.
And she made the experience unbearable.
I thought of Sister Henriella.
I considered a doorknob.
We made it through.
Years later, as I consider my own children and their educational experiences I make sure to tell them to be respectful, and I pray that the respect goes both ways because times have changed, and if someone in a place of authority extends a right cross, or compromises my child in any way there will certainly be hell to pay.
Because some of the scars don't heal.
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