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Me_irl
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this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2026
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me_irl
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I had a teacher in 4th grade that was an issue from day 1. My parents had moved right after Hurricane Hugo. I started at this school during the middle of the year, and due to the timing of everything also in the middle of the week.
The class had apparently been working on something earlier in the week that I was unaware of. The teacher hadn't mentioned it during my first day, and then expected me to have it on my second day. So my first grade in the class was a zero. It never went uphill. I have ADHD, and she was entirely unwilling to try at all with me; I spent many of my days in a vice principal's office. Generally she was unpleasant, and often specifically cruel to a 10yr old.
That school was doing a team teaching thing. Two teachers split subjects. I ended up with As and Bs in her teammate's classes, and Fs in all of her classes.
I did get some revenge on her later, but that's another story.
Ok let's hear the story. I had a similar teacher experience, even had the dual teacher thing, but it was not as bad. Although she ended up having a major seizure in the middle of class which was pretty upsetting for us, but obviously that had nothing to do with how she was treating me.
Since she often would just send me directly to the administration offices most days, I got to be very familiar with them. That school had three vice principals, and I got to know them all pretty well. They were having a hard time understanding why I was being excluded so regularly. As the school year concluded, they would come and "observe" me to see what about my situation was the issue. I wasn't perfect; I was a ten year old boy with ADHD. But neither was I any more disruptive than the other children in the class.
My parents decided to have me repeat the 4th grade, and I had an entirely different teacher pair. They also put me in the school's TAG program. This was definitely the right thing to do for me. The other teachers had none of the problems that that one teacher did. Meanwhile, that teacher had decided to to the same sort of thing with another child.
My fifth grade year was exciting, because that first teacher had apparently decided to start sending "problem" children out of her classes, and administration was not thrilled as they had things to do and couldn't monitor kids all day. I ended up being a part of their process to force her to retire earlier than she intended.
Over three decades later I'm still angry about how she treated me, and I feel like her punishment wasn't nearly as harsh as it ought to have been. She kept telling me I was a terrible child, and I internalized much of the abuse. I had a difficult time trusting teachers after my experiences with her.
I did run into her as an adult though. She recognized me and asked me if I had ever managed to "learn how to behave." I told her that I had, and because of her I even read the newspaper daily. This seemed to excite her until I told her that I checked the obituaries daily for hers, and asked her to not keep me waiting much longer. She finally died about eight years after that.
Fuck you, Mrs. Gamble. The only thing keeping me from pissing on your grave is my fear of urinating in public.