Mrs. Audrey Smalley
Monday, Oct. 31, 2011 2:39 PM
"Charlie Brown is the one person I identify with. C.B. is such a loser. He wasn't even the star of his own Halloween special." - Chris Rock
Well, I spent my entire weekend holed up in the house. Kent has pneumonia so our plans to get away for the weekend defaulted - as they usually do. I ended up spending way too many hours on the computer playing World of Warcraft and all those silly yet fun games on Facebook. I suppose I could have gone shopping, but I don't have any money. I could have gone to visit a family member but I see them all the time. No. It was nice to hole up for awhile away from everybody playing games and being lazy. Very relaxing, actually.
I did something mean this weekend. Yesterday, to be exact. I was helping JR with his math homework. He's in 8th grade this year, the poor kid. Anyhow, it brought back so many horrible memories of my 8th grade math experience that I.. well, let's just say I wrote a nasty message to an old teacher of mine.
First off, Mrs. Audrey Smalley (yes, I'm posting her full name on here because she's not worthy of being a teacher!) was my 8th grade "Pre-Algebra" teacher. In 6th and 7th grade I went to a public middle school, but for 8th grade I transferred back to the Catholic school I had gone to for Kindergarten through 5th grade. Needless to say, I was behind in math? Well, according to Mrs. Audrey Smalley I was. And instead of helping me catch up or spending some time with me to help me understand why I was behind, dear Mrs. Audrey Smalley would say comments like, "You'll never catch up with the rest of the class. You're too stupid." Or "You're not smart enough to understand this stuff so you might as well give up now." Those comments were the NICE comments. Yes, those were the nice ones.
Because of her - and other middle school issues that every tweeny goes through - I fell into a deep depression. In fact, for years after 8th grade I believed I was stupid. Even when I landed on the math team in high school and went to math competitions I believed I was an idiot. And not just in math. No, her wrath extended to all areas of my developing self-esteem. My mother, God bless her soul, went to the school and told them what Mrs. Audrey Smalley was doing to me and a few other kids but the school didn't listen. In fact, they allowed Mrs. Audrey Smalley to continue to ruin, I'm sure, countless other young impressionable minds.
What was my message to Mrs. Audrey Smalley? I'll post it here now:
Hi. You may not remember me, but I was helping my stepson with his 8th grade math and it brought back horrible memories of you. So I had to look you up just to see if you were still out there making life miserable for other math students. I just want you to know that even though you called me stupid for an entire year, I went on to be a member of my high school math team because I had an excellent teacher my freshman year who believed in me. But I struggled for awhile with math because of you. You had me believing I wasn't any good at it. What kind of teacher does that to a child? I pray that you aren't doing that to children anymore because women like you shouldn't be in the classroom.
Have a wonderful life. Good day!
I did attempt to be tactful. It wasn't like I wanted to be a bitch about the whole thing. I feel like one, but I also feel like I've let some of my past go. It's been quite a relief and good experience overall. I hope it makes her think twice before she treats another kid the way she treated me and a few of my friends.
Time to get back to work.....
Happy Halloween everybody!