wheelbarrow-full-of-deutschmarks:
My grade 4 teacher took my desk away because I would draw on it. I was to sit on the floor for months as my punishment. (Deserved or not, to an 8 year old this was really embarrassing.)
My grade 7 teacher went into my desk to go through my folder of (admittedly angsty) art without my permission, then went to my mother. Because of her I was forced to see the school psychiatrist regularly.
My grade 8 teacher told me art could never be a career and that I would end up without any worth, working somewhere trashy for my whole life.
My grade 9 teacher ripped up my entire art folder because I was drawing in class, after bawling in front of everyone she then chased me into the washroom to lecture me while I hid to cry in a stall.
My grade 10 teacher didn’t believe I had painted something by myself, she told me it was plagiarism and gave me zero. When it was in fact 100% mine.
This is just few of many.
Thirteen years have passed and I am ashamed to admit that any of this still affects me. These instances for which I am sure are insignificant to any of you shook my confidence, sucked the passion out of my only escape, and made me feel as if my hobby was wrong, worthless, and should be hidden; and for that I will never forgive them.
submitted by –Anonymous
I was threatened by a teacher to have my drawings thrown out the window. My friend’s drawings were actually tossed into the hallway. We were both publicly humiliated in front of our classmates. I nearly cried and had to hold back my tears the entire class period. This happened with the same teacher. A teacher who at the beginning of the year told us it was okay to draw in his class. Apparently he suddenly changed his point of view. This happened last year and I still haven’t forgiven the teacher. Fuck teachers who try to shit on you just because you’re a doodler, or someone passionate about drawing. Just fuck them.
I’m not an artist, but when I was in middle school, I had written a story that took up about three notebooks. One of my teachers caught me while I was writing during class, ad yelled at me for it. She then went around to the rest of my teachers and told them that if I was seen with a red notebook, it was to be taken away from me. A few weeks later, I had a study period where the same teacher was watching us. Since it was a free period and I had no homework, I assumed it would be okay if I did some writing. So, out comes the little red notebook. A few minutes later, the teacher came storming up to my desk and began to yell at me again in front of the entire class. I was in sixth grade, and I was an introvert. This was terrifying to me. She then proceeded to take the notebook form me and tear it up. She said that if I can’t focus on what really matters, like school, then I shouldn’t be allowed to write “pointless scribbles” in my notebook. That one notebook was about a year’s worth of work, and I was very proud of it.
However, it is because of people like her that I want to become a teacher. I want to be able to inspire kids to do what they’re good at. And if that means that someone has to draw a picture during my English class, then so be it. Maybe English isn’t their thing. Maybe they could be really great at something else. I know there are standards that my classes have to meet, but that doesn’t mean that my subject is the only one that matters to these kids. I hate when teachers act like that.
Teachers are some of the biggest hypocrites i’ve ever seen. I love art and i love to draw, and although I do my best to avoid doodling in class and have never been in trouble for anything like that they still manage to criticise me. When I decided to continue with Art as a subject in school teachers from other departments would tell me it was a waste of time, that it was a easy subject and that I should do a real subject. I would love to have a career in animation and visual effects, a career that’s earnings can potentially exceed 6 figures; yet teachers sit there on their high horse and there looking utterly miserable and tell me that there’s no future in art. The worst point was when I took it as a subject even further again this year, and seeing as i was the only person in my class who took art, my Maths teacher thought it’d be hilarious to call me lazy and stupid in front of everyone, and that people only take art because they can’t get in to other subjects. I am not a stupid person. I have already proved myself as academic multiple times; I got straight As in 9 subjects last year, as opposed to the 8 the rest of the year did, with one of those As being Latin that I self taught in one year; I take art because I enjoy and no other reason. The funniest part of the whole situation though is that teachers who have called art a waste of space and an easy pass then go on and compliment my work, and one even asked to buy it. Teachers are supposed to educate children in different areas, however it’s also their job to encourage them to reach their full potential, and I can assure you that unless you measure quality of life purely on academics and money, then nobody will reach their full potential by giving up their passions to pursue something that isn’t such a “waste of time”.
In 4th grade when we learned to knit, my teacher yelled at me when I wanted to combine two colors instead of using just one. After I had tried to knitted one fish at school and one fish at home, the fish at school terrible the one home good. The teacher complained to me about all the faults of the fish at school. I showed her the fish I had made home, this one two colors she told me I hadn’t made it and that it was ugly anyway. I was forced to knit a new fish instead of getting to make a bunny like the rest of the class.
Same teacher yelled at me for not wanting to write the same stories that the others wrote but writing my own. Yelled at me for my handwriting to not be the same as anyone elses and forced me to write like them, causing my handwriting to be horrible which it still is. Yelled at me for not drawing England on the front of the english book but a war seen from Scotlands side against England. Yelled at me for using “wrong” colors when coloring flowers and even yelled at me for not enjoying the same books as the rest of the class.Not as extreme as some of your stories, but back at my old school one of my teachers actually erased all my doodles on my work because it showed that i “wasnt paying attention” when in fact doodling actually helps me focus.
i was forbidden to draw on anything the rest of the school year :/
This is what pisses me off as a college student going into teaching. I’ve known having teachers who disagreed with drawing class or writing in class but never went such extremes as the cases above. But I know that doodling helped me concentrate, it helped me focus, and when I was ahead of the class while the teacher was explaining something, I drew shit on the margins to wait out the time patiently.
I want the kids I have to know that I would not only allow drawing, but encourage it. Showing me what’s going on in your brain, what’s interesting to you, how much do you like to draw in class, does it really help you focus, or if my lesson plans need better pacing so you won’t get too bored. Drawing and writing in class shows that you have your own individual passions outside the actual stupidly assigned curriculum. I want to say that having your own hobbies and passions in a million times more important that just the systemic education today.
It aggravates me so much that teachers would go so far as to attack students own way of thinking, own way of actions, to conform to a system that doesn’t really help them that much in the end.
From fifth grade to about this time last year (when I was a senior in high school), I carried a clipboard. It was primarily for art, but came to hold all of my notes and schoolwork too as I got older. I had teachers take my clipboard away and yell at me about carrying it, or critisize me for carrying it as a “security blanket”. It was my security totem and though I could focus on a lesson just fine if I were allowed to doodle lightly, I was kind of a wreck without it and couldn’t absorb anything.