Last updated on November 26, 2023
Trauma comes in many forms. I don’t wish to suggest they are all equal — they are not. But this blog post discusses the emotional abuse teachers intentionally and unintentionally inflict on students.
As a teacher, I’m sure I’ve said things that upset a student over the last 30 years. We all make mistakes. Those mistakes are not what this post is about, either. You can apologize for mistakes and mean it. I’ve had teachers make mistakes and express sympathy for my response.
Some educators are simply cruel. They are bullies. Maybe they don’t see themselves in that way, but that’s what they are from the perspective of the outcasts, the students on the margins of the classroom community.
The earliest comments I recall were from the time my family lived in Bakersfield, California.
A teacher referred to my parents and me as “trailer-park trash.” I cannot recall if we were upgraded to “white trash” or not. Elementary school teachers suggesting I’d never amount to much left a mark. The cruel statements both motivated me, because I was angry, and planted self-doubts I cannot shake.
The music teachers (two of them) who said because I couldn’t hold the clarinet “properly” that I’d never be any good. (I eventually made regional honor band in junior high.)
The teacher who said that because I had poor balance, I must have learning issues.
The physical education teacher who criticized my arm not swinging while we ran around the giant field of the elementary school. Gym teachers seem inherently cruel and vicious. The “President’s Patch” for fitness meant one failure after another, and the derision that accompanied by paralyzed arm and bent body.
Junior high teachers were like junior high students.
The show-off science teacher who made mistakes but was adored by some because he was so faux macho. The history teacher who kicked chairs and threw things at students. The math teacher who declared us “dumb as coconuts” when we made mistakes.
Only a few teachers seemed to care. They cared a lot, thankfully, or I probably wouldn’t have finished high school. I would have begged to transfer to the community college with a GED.
The opinions of teachers have a shaped me — not for the better.
I have a lot of notes on my experiences in school settings. In 2011 or so, I attempted to compile a book on my journey through education. It is one of those projects I think about and then never quite get back to completing. I also keep wanting to revise the book on relationships and autism. My life is a lot of incomplete projects.
Teachers, especially professors, left me feeling that nothing I do is quite right. When the work is okay, it is still the wrong sort of work that I want to do. My insecurities, reinforced by teachers, haunt me.
As I write this blog post, I realize I should finish writing my educational autobiography. It still matters.
My undergraduate years…
In September 2017, I began shredding my old undergraduate papers to reduce our clutter. I would catch myself reading the notes and getting angry.
TAs and professors included rather harsh comments on my early papers at USC in the 1980s. Today, we’d consider the comments mean and unprofessional. I was called ignorant, sloppy, unprepared, and “out of your league” by professors. The grades were consistently C/C- until mid-way through every single semester. Some of the Thematic Option (“Traumatic Option”) notes should have an instructor fired today.
“Maybe you can move back to the trailer park.” “You don’t know basic French? Total f- up. Quit now.” “Why are you here if you haven’t read the Latin classics? You don’t understand anything about Plato.” “What hick place are your from, again?”
More uses of profanity than I recalled. Ouch. Lots of profanity in the comments.
So, I spent a lot of time reading and trying to catch up to my classmates, who were prepared by their schools for the type of place that was USC. I’m the type of person to fight back to prove someone wrong, but what about all the other first-generation students who didn’t attend the best high schools or have extra preparation?
A famous professor wrote across a paper, “How can you be so fuuuchin stoopid?”
Graduate schools weren’t much better. There was a clear anti-science bias, ironically, among the humanities professors.
“Of course you like STEM fields. They don’t require critical thinking.” “You’re too concerned with data, instead of meaning.” “You’re not mature enough to do well in courses that require thought.”
Teachers shape us. They certainly shaped me. Teachers and professors made me angry. They made me hate school, even though I love learning.
There has always been a tinge of classism from teachers and administrators, from my earliest years in school through university. That doesn’t vanish once you’re also a teacher or college professor, either.