Before I get to the list of stories to explain my hypothesis about English teachers thinking I'm crazy, I would like to make a quick point about my childhood: I don't remember it. Anything before 7th grade was kind of a blur. It was kind of a traumatic year for a number of reasons, which I am not completely willing to get into.
I'm going to start with the 6th grade. We were reading... umm... some book with a picture of some guy on the cover. (See? My memory's all jacked up!) I was goofing off with a friend of mine, and I was pretending to seductively lick the guy's face on the cover because we were really mature kids. At that particular moment, I did not realize that my English teacher was standing right behind me. My friend started laughing, and I turned to see him both cracking up and rolling his eyes. I don't really remember what he did next, but I feel like he probably walked away and tried to forget about my awkwardness.
7th grade: My 7th grade English teacher was a crazy, sadistic bitch. She was about 6 feet tall and about 400 lbs. I was about 4'6" and 80 lbs at the time, so I thought she was enormous. The scariest part about her was the way she yelled. I think she may be the reason why I am so introverted. Before that class, I was always a very outgoing child, who wasn't afraid to talk to people. A few weeks ago, I ran into her at CVS, and she was coughing like crazy, like her lung was trying to dislodge itself from within this repulsive person. I couldn't help but think, "That's what you get for thinking I'm dumb." Anyway, I was always in the honors classes, from the time I was in 5th grade. When I got to her class, she scared me shitless. She would call on people if their hand wasn't raised. I don't understand why teachers do that. It's obvious that I don't know the answer. Did she really want to embarrass me and make me feel stupid? Did she want me to look dumb to the other kids and give them an opportunity to make fun of me? Did she really want to lower my self-esteem? Several times, she called on me, and I did not know the answer. Rather than helping me, she would make the class sit in silence while I flipped through my book, desperately hoping the answer would magically jump out at me, which it never did. One day, I decided I would not say a word or move a muscle when she called on me. I sat there, avoiding eye contact. I stared at her shoes, waiting for her to move on to torture the next student. When I got home that day, my mom confronted me and told me that she had gotten a call from this teacher, saying she wanted to schedule a meeting. My mom went to meet her. Apparently, this teacher thought I had an attitude problem. I turned my work in on time and tried my hardest, but I would not look at her or say a word to her. She suggested that I should be moved down a grade in English. My mom explained that I was afraid of her because she yelled a lot. She then proceeded to yell at my mom about how she resented that and how she doesn't yell. Ironic, eh? Anyway, she continued to call on me, and I continued to avoid looking at her and saying anything. I turned my work in on time and managed to squeak by with a B-. My mom was perfectly fine with that, and for once, took my side.
8th grade: I was still traumatized by that one insane teacher, so I didn't know what to expect from the next. I guess I had not gotten over my fear of English teachers. Anyway, my 8th grade English teacher was... peppy. She was one of those people who was "suuuuper excited to be here today!!!" even though she was there every freaking day. I kind of wanted to try and teach her about cynicism, but that would require speaking to her. I never said a word to her, so she thought I was a trouble-maker. I sat in the back of the room, and I never warmed up to her. I was terrified. I never said a word throughout the course, but I still passed the class. One day, we were talking about Anne Frank and the Holocaust. I was horrified by some of the stuff that was happening, and for once, I spoke up. Not really "spoke up." I quietly said to a friend, "Oh my God. That is so... cruel!" However, for whatever reason, I kind of tripped over my words, so "cruel" kind of sounded like "cool." You can see where this is going. My teacher looked disgusted and said, "Be quiet, class! I don't know who said it, but I just heard someone say that this was 'cool.' This is not cool. It is awful..." and yada yada yada. I was afraid to say that I hadn't said cool. She knew it was me, though. I spent the rest of 8th grade in the back of the classroom, avoiding all eye contact with everyone.
9th Grade: I kind of tried to block 9th grade out of my mind, and it pretty much worked. However, I will remember this story for quite a while. I was essentially taking freshman English in 8th grade, but my mom wanted me to focus mainly on science because I always wanted to be a scientist. So, I took freshman English again. I knew how to act in a high school setting. It seemed that nobody else knew that it was unacceptable to talk in class, throw paper wads behind the teacher's back, or lack a fetus in their uterus throughout the year. I always followed these rules, yet my teacher never really believed me, since freshmen are stupid and there can't be any that follow the rules. One day, during the TV announcements before class, my friend's marker had exploded all over her bag and on her hands, so she asked me for hand sanitizer. I was one of the cool kids, so I had a bottle of Purell in my backpack. I gave her a little bit. While I was doing so, my teacher suddenly turned around and yelled, "KATHRYN! NO TALKING. GET IN THE HALL. NOW." I tried to protest, but she cut me off. These were her favorite punishments: taking away our freedom to prove our point, and sending us away for whatever amount of time she wanted us to be gone. I left the classroom and sat in the hall for 15 minutes, and she sent out another kid to tell me to come in. Later in the year, she realized that I am smarter than she assumed, and I think she regrets her decision to punish me. Or she still believes I'm dumb and crazy. I guess I'll never know.
10th grade: Well, he is probably reading this post because he is totally cool like that and we still keep in touch. I want to talk about the first day of school in my Honors American Literature class. I remember this quite clearly, but I don't think he does. I had a small group of friends in the class, and we all sat in the front row. That day, I had decided to wear a brand-new pair of shoes to class. They were really cool black and white checkerboard Rocket Dogs. I absolutely loved them, and I still have them to this day. I had gotten compliments on my shoes all day, and I was feeling super-confident, especially because my friends were there with me. My friends and I were all laughing at something when my teacher walked into the room. We were seated near the door, so we were the first 4 people he saw when he walked in the classroom. He said hi to us and then noticed my shoes. He said, "I really like your shoes!" I guess he expected me to say thanks, but I'm really bad at accepting compliments. If someone compliments my shirt or clothing or whatever, I agree with them because I know that it's awesome. That's why I bought it. Anyway, I said to him, "Yeah. They're awesome." I had said it without a thought, but then I saw a look of shock on my teacher's face. Then he said, "Usually people say thank you." I replied, quick as a flash, "Yeah? Well I don't." Then I realized that what I had said may have come off as rude, so I stopped talking and kind of stared at the table in front of me. Then I introduced myself without looking at him. I assume he thought I was completely insane, and through getting to know me, that belief has probably been strengthened. Especially because of the handcuffs incident... That happened in 11th grade though. I'll get to that in a minute.
11th grade: Well, I had the same teacher that I had in 10th grade, but I was also taking another English class at the time. I have always been interested in psychology, so I chose to write a lot about it. I wrote this one story about a girl who had hallucinated her entire life, which had really been spent in a mental institution. Another story was about how people are actually supposed to have wings because they are generally good, but people have become cruel and sick, so they will never fly. I am pretty sure that that teacher thought/still thinks I'm crazy, but whatever. I'm sure he comes across hundreds of even weirder kids. So, the handcuffs incident... That was with my 10th/11th grade teacher. I was carrying a bottle of perfume because I was giving it to a friend. I also had a stiletto in my bag because I was drawing it for art class. I also had a pair of handcuffs. I had won these handcuffs in a game, and chose them as my prize as a joke. I put them in my purse and sort of forgot about them. Anyway, I sat in the desk right in front of my teacher's. I was talking to him about how I had a really busy weekend and searching my purse for a pencil before class. I pulled out my makeup, the perfume, and the shoe. I was saying, "Saturday was just so crazy for me!" when I pulled the handcuffs out of my purse. I realized the implications of all of the things that were strewn across my desk, and stopped myself mid-sentence. It sounded kind of like, "Saturday was just so crazy for me! I was in downtown Detroit for-- I'm not a hooker." I stuffed all of the stuff into my bag while face-palming. I hoped to face-palm hard enough to knock me unconscious, but it didn't work. It was possibly the most awkward, yet hilarious moment of my life.
12th grade: Wow. Now that I think about it, I didn't really have any issues with either of my English teachers. I had my creative writing teacher again for mythology, and a new teacher for a reading class. I'd say we got along pretty well, and we liked to make fun of the other kids in the class because they were all morons. He never came out and said it, but his thoughts on the subject were pretty obvious. Nobody picked up on his sarcasm, and I think I was the only one in the class who realized that he was really smart.
The Early Years: Well, I'd say that in my elementary school, all of my teachers thought I was awesome when I wasn't scaring the other students. I always loved to tell stories. More than that, I have always loved to tell scary stories. Before I could write, I told stories of a man in a black cloak who followed you around. Whenever you turned around, he moved directly out of your line of vision. If you moved fast enough, you could sort of see the shredded ends of his cloak moving in your peripheral vision. Of course, this scared the living shit out of all of the other kids, who then told our teacher, who then told my parents. They made me stop making up these stories. When I learned to write, I wrote of haunted houses and murder stories. (I was a very grim child.) I shared my scary stories with the class. They always loved them, and people always asked me to tell scary stories at recess. So, due to my oddly creepy mind as a child, my teachers thought I was completely insane. Around 5th grade, I realized that it isn't socially acceptable to scare people with stories that could give them paranoid delusions unless you're in the film industry (ba-dum tss!), so I stopped telling scary stories.
Now that you have read all of my weird rambling, I'm sure you think I'm crazy, too. Whatever. I can honestly say that I don't have a problem with that.
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