This is what one of my neighbors told me when she learned that I teach English Language. “Just because I was weak in English my English Language teacher just ruined my life and I never thought I could talk about it. Every day she made my life miserable to a point I wrote suicide notes and tried killing myself. She would insult me, mock me, call me a black sheep in front of the class. She made me feel I was worthless. In class seven final question paper there was a paragraph of punctuations that she made mocking me. During the examination I broke down. She ruined my self-esteem. I once told my mom and she talked and she talked to my English teacher and things turned worse. The more she said nastier things the more I got intimidated by English. Once she said in front of the whole class ‘you are too stupid for education, just get married and leave. Then she continued ‘ehh don’t bother, you’re too ugly’ anyway’. I was traumatized to a point that I skipped school for a week and stopped stepping out of my room. Only then my mother took me to a therapist where I cried my heart out. My therapist told me that suicide is not the answer to all the bullies I faced. But surely those insults left me scarred. Even now after years I am afraid to open up and voice my opinion in front of people.” I turned speechless and did not know how to console her.
Amid mounting data that bullying is on the rise, there’s a glaring absence of statistics on adult school bullies perhaps because bullying by a teacher or principal is far more complex to address and rectify.
The majority of teachers genuinely care about their students. Although they occasionally have their share of bad days, they are kind and supportive. In some cases a teacher’s irritability may result from burnout, personal or work related stress. But if you have a teacher who is unnecessarily mean to you, try to keep your parents updated daily about how the teacher is abusing you. Write notes about the incidents in detail with day and date.
