"Let me humiliate you for my entertainment!" - The secrets of student tormented by his primary school teacher!

The education of a student matters especially when they become the next generation of teachers.

As a successful and outstanding teacher I pride myself on my ability to forge, and maintain excellent relationships with my learners, as well as my outstanding pastoral practice. I feel that I need to finally share with the world the psychological anguish my primary teacher put me through (as there are some teachers who are still out there, using and abusing their role)

I will take you back to my primary school days in the 90’s, I had a teacher that was so feared by us children that even, fear itself was scared of her. Back in the 90’s you would be surprised to know that the blackboard was still king of the classroom, and there was only one computer in the entire school. One of the perks of moving into the juniors was not only getting a desk (and you could a poster on the inside lid) rather than tables, and saying goodbye to the assortment of trays with our names taped across them, to the fountain pen...oooh. The downside was the thought of being taught by this teacher, to which I will keep her name anonymous and refer to her as Mrs CB.

My first encounter with this particular teacher came as early as year 3. At my primary school when we moved into the juniors we were taught in classes where half of the class was one year group and the other half was another year group; for example half of year 3 and half of year 4 were in one class, and half of year 5, and half year of 6 in one class. The fear of being in a class where half of the learners were as old as up to1 year older was bad enough, and unfortunately I was bullied by a few learners from this year group and the torture wouldn’t end there either. When I moved up to year 3 there were two teachers Ms CB, and Mrs R (again I keep the names anonymous) I was so relieved when I found out I had got Mrs R because that meant I wasn’t being taught by Mrs CB, until this point I hadn’t had any run-ins with Mrs CB, PHEW. The only time we were placed with our own year group was for Maths and D&T (Design and Technology) which for us unfortunate year 3’s was taught by her.

One Maths session that I will never forget, because it effected my confidence in Maths for the rest of my life was this one. We were looking at long multiplication in this session, and we all had to take a turn answering the problem on the blackboard. Today was NOT my lucky day. So, Mrs CB called me up to the board, but before I was able to answer the question on the board (which, by the way, I had no clue how to answer or where to begin) she would ask us a question unrelated to the problem on the board or even Maths, and my question was...

“Jim tell me, what is my name?”

I answered with “Mrs CB” to which she replied with,

“No, that’s not my name Jim, what is my name?”

At this point I was looking rather red in the cheeks with embarrassment and confusion, some learners were also quietly sniggering at me. So I repeated “Mrs CB.”

She continued “that’s not my name Jim.”

By this point I was crying in front of the class, as my futile attempt to stop my emotions had failed, I was humiliated, and felt so thick, I still couldn’t understand why she was tormenting me as I had answered her question twice, but she told me I was wrong, I continued to cry as the whole class laughed at me.

Mrs CB then addressed the class “My class 3CB, tell James what my name is!”

The whole class in unison said “Ms B!”

What I didn’t know was that Mrs CB had changed her name due to her divorce coming through, and she reverted back to her maiden name which began with a B hence Ms B. To add insult to injury she still continued to make me do the long multiplication, which of course I couldn’t do. She proceeded to keep me at the blackboard blankly looking at the problem whilst sobbing. The shame of having to walk through the entire class to get back to my desk which, was located at the back of the classroom, has never gone away. This was not the first time she was to shame me in front of the whole class, I wasn’t the only one though as I had this particular teacher for 3 years. Thanks to her I hated my primary school days and developed an intense fear of Maths, not just because of that incident but because her best teaching tactic was, if you didn’t understand, she would shout at you until you either, got it or cried, which happened to me quite a lot. The teachers at secondary school often wondered why I would never ask for help or say “I don’t understand” however, it was too late by then.

The silver lining in this cloud was that her bullying inspired me to be a teacher, because I never want anyone to ever have the experience I had. I would never make a learner cry for my own entertainment.

When we left at the end of year 6 Ms B was moved from year 6 to reception, god forbid what she did to those poor children as god knows how many kids lives she ruined at least mine was later on in my school life! I know she left the school within a year or 2. I wonder if the school knew how she tautened and humiliated her students. That I will never know.

Lastly she said I wouldn’t go far in life. This is my response nearly 20 years later...

I still managed to get some GCSE’s, a job to which I was promoted to an Assistant Manager, and later a Branch Manager, I even got a few A Levels on the way, which led me to my undergraduate degree where I obtained a 2:1 with honours where in my first week I sadly lost my sister, because she was involved in a road traffic collision back in 2006 (she was 14 and I was 19). I have later gone onto Produce TV, Act on professional stages across the West Midlands, presented live TV to the UK & USA, written a book and completed a level 7 qualification (PGCE in Further Education).

Ms CB, the bullies and death, I say to you in the most professional way, “up yours,” you didn’t break me, and I achieved in life, no thanks to you and your humiliation!

Kind regards,

The one who achieved!

The essence of life is……. Ingredients 200g of the plague, 50g of love, half a chalice of enchanted water, 2 scream’s of fear,nice tea and a mince pie.

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The essence of life is……. Ingredients 200g of the plague, 50g of love, half a chalice of enchanted water, 2 scream’s of fear, leave to rise out of the pretty box labelled social stigmas and enjoy with a nice tea and a mince pie. Yum!

It is amazing how art helps to stimulate the brain; one is sitting here bored out of my mind due to a lack of teacher related plague’s that is keeping them in the school for another day and me on my bed writing this ramble about art.

Art has become so overlooked as a powerful tool to help stimulate the brain. We begin to think about art as a picture with no words but actually it is a million different scenarios, words and worlds in one beautiful colour or stroke of the brush, its amazing how being in the company of this masterpiece (in my opinion) for a mere two minutes has took me to memory’s of places I once regularly thought of, worlds I used to explore in the vastness that is our imaginations. Isn’t it a shame that we begin to loose our imaginations as we get older. I remember times of fighting under the desert sun with a sword so powerful it could sculpture the sky, reshape the moon and redefine the stars and now the only sword I have is the double blade of Gillette fusion to shave away those years! I must admit the bonus to those awful GCSE Maths classes were the endless hours I would stare out the window and look out to the endless green fields and the hope of escape that emulated from the trees in the woods, that one day I would be brave enough to leave this prison the excitement of escaping and becoming whatever I desired. This was a dream that was shattered by the harshness of reality when you had to become a man and plunge through those woods of adolescence and realise that your once favoured pastime of staring out of the window into the never ending blue sky would become the stare of adult whose world has been shattered by the fake dreams he conjured of the world with his mystical, magic powers and the ever changing ability to be who he wants to be, do what he wants to do, only to find that the leaves are again falling from the trees, your praying for rain and the hope that another human becomes unable to go to work so you can begin to regenerate your bank balance into the positive numbers bracket. Thanks to university and these pipe dreams derived from the blue sky from your prison window that it all looks very different now. What a depressing view of life all thanks to ones loss of their imagination and the politics of today’s society which for the past ten years have encouraged us into higher education with the promises of richer fuller lives with endless blue sky’s and warm sandy beaches where you breath a sigh of relief whilst you sip your enchanted water and indulge in the serenity this scene offers you. This brings me back to a quote from my degree,
“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation”
What an amazing analogy of life and I do believe that it by far surpasses any interpretation of life I can muster. Looking at this quote by Shakespeare as an unqualified in life 23 year old one can finally begin to agree that life so far is an elaborate hoax, life is an illusion intended to entertain people with money and the higher force that controls our every move, we are like pawns on a chess board and the only way to evolve is to understand, appreciate, respect and fear life itself as even the religion quotes “the lord giveth and the lord taketh away”. I am not a political or religious person but one begins to contemplate the power of these forces in life and they are a force that if you don’t understand, fear and respect them you can become stuck in one of life’s endless roundabouts but fear not the rambler does offer you get out of jail free card. This is that, you can do what you want to do In life, don’t be pigeon holed into societies pretty boxes of which you apparently fit into because of your gender, race and ability, just because some one tells you, you can only achieve this tell them that you can if you really want it get it, but politics is the devils pretty box and he makes it very attractive and alluring with is mirage of blue sky’s and easy street life! Look at Art see the way soaps depict real life, its true but you have the power to make a difference and become everything you want to be, the world might be a stage but it’s a blank canvas for you to regain that mystical, magical sword we once wielded in our childhood imagination and sculpt your future and become the kings and queens of your own chess game when that pawn reaches his destiny at the opponents end of the chess board but its not the end, the truth is out there you just have to know where to begin…..regain your imagination! Its is amazing how one piece of art has provoked a whole ramble and avid readers of which there is two if you include one’s self I could write a lot more! This beautiful piece of art at the begging is rich in colours and tempts you with the fantasy of world’s left to explore and journeys completed. A whole production could be sculpted from this stimulus and provide the most ground breaking, articulated, mystical journey for all to explore and for all to draw their own adventure form. This image shows life in its entirety in my opinion, death, love, past, present, future, life this is the spirit of life that lives in all of us, unique and beautiful and mine was released by Love soppy as it may sound. This image encapsulates what I believe is my essence incorporated through my depiction of this image. It’s hard to believe that ones brain can even begin to contemplate this so early on a Monday, do we all think like this? Or do I have some cancer that prevents normality to be resumed in my highly contaminated brain? I would be nice to begin to see the lighter things in life enjoy the breeze on a sunny day admire the snow falling from your cosy, warm dimly lit living room with out constantly wondering, ok I know why it rains, why does it snow? Why do the elements not allow us to make rain balls and wet angels? And why does it always seem like a good idea to put our nicely toasted hands into the freezing white abyss to then throw it at each other or make a fat man with a carrot or whatever item you may find for a nose….. That is a good question and one should begin to ponder over it with a mince pie and a good old cup of tea. I think tea is brain food and I know at least two people in my life that would agree. I leave you with this we are a nation that is obsessed with reality and we become engrossed in the world that the TV producers, directors and actors deliver to us we get so engrossed we want to become the people we idolise and crave our daily dosage of reality each week but yet fake reality is better than our own we are our own soap and x factor we just don’t need cameras to depict it just Facebook to broadcast it.
Good night out there, whoever and whatever you are!