Back to School: Teachers

I thought I’d write this in spirit of going back to school...although most are probably already back in school.

I’ve been in school for a few years and would say I have a fair few experiences and thus a few rants that I could go on. So as not to write an entire book about all of it I shall stick to teachers in this particular post.

This rant was a bit longer than anticipated...because of that I’ve decided to make this a three parter: the good, the bad and the ugly; starting with the ugly.

I need to start this off by saying that my mother tongue is English and that this nation’s language is German and that my spelling is not the best in any language.

I think we’ve all had at least one teacher that manages to ruin an entire subject for us, either through their incapability of teaching or because they’re just not a very nice person. Now this particular teacher was my French and German teacher in secondary school. She was the mother of a friend of my brothers which (sadly) meant I already knew her. (This technically shouldn’t happen but apparently she only noticed I’d be in her class when it was too late.) At the time i didn’t think much of it, I didn’t expect special treatment or anything as I didn’t really know her or have anything to do with her.

As mentioned my spelling isn’t too great so at one point I approached her after school to ask, whether there was anything I could do to improve. She said the thing I had heard many a time: read. I was already reading a lot (it was basically all I did back then) so I asked whether there was anything else and she recommended these exercises online that she offered to correct. I thought it was a really nice offer...sadly i was so embarrassed about my spelling and grammar that I didn’t do that many of them. So logically I didn’t really improve.

A year or two later I approached her again in the hope that there was another way aside from boring exercise sheets. In that year or two our class had started to dislike her. Some of the reasons were: she couldn’t take criticism, she tried to act cool and her teaching methods were rather boring. So I went up to her with a couple of my friends after class to ask the question. Her answer and I quote (admittedly translated but still): “Oh, you’ll never improve because you’re a foreigner.” I’m not kidding. That is literally what she said. The best part of it all? She’s mexican. So this woman who is supposed to be encouraging and educating me and who is a foreigner has just told me I’m a lost cause because my parents’ mother tongue isn’t German. Excuse me?!?

I believe I was about 14 at the time; so despite what other people told me I believed her, which I shouldn’t have. My point of this story is (that she was a horrible teacher and) that it is dispicable that someone like her could make me believe I was a goner and there was nothing I could do about it. Someone like that should not have that kind of power. So thanks to her I dislike German (and doubt my spelling and writing skills in every language). I have no idea how she didn’t manage to ruin French for me as well to be honest…

I hope you have a better school experience and don’t have teachers that ruin subjects for you. I also wish you a great start to the academic year whether you’re in school or working or whatever cool thing it is you may be doing.

Take care and wishing you a lovely day

Shaura