Is your teacher a bully?

Bullies suck.

Kedah, Malaysia. Photo credits to Ryo Helmenkalastaja

I say this because trust me, I'd know. After making the move from Austin, Texas to holy-cow-was-that-a-cow-? Kedah, Malaysia, I realized pretty soon the there seemed to be a pattern emerging - People didn't like it when I spoke English.

WELL TOO BAD. Because - surprise! - it was the only language I knew how to speak back then. High school was especially tough (funny how you think everything sucks in America because you're too Asian, only to come back and get picked on for being too American.) then add that to the fact that my parents had the happy happy notion of sending me to a Chinese school (Here's a note: kids LOVE this) and you have a girl who's chair gets kicked every day by her classmates - which isn't so bad seeing as that was basically the only form of human interaction I received for the first semester there.

Of course, that's all in the past now. What I really wanted to talk about wasn't the fact that teenage girls are evil (Thank you , Captain Obvious), its actually about the hashing I received later on from my own teachers. My own teachers. How sad is that?

The view outside my school.
Photo credits to Ryo Helmenkalastaja

The first time I realized that the teachers in my school (believe it or not) DID talk about things other than algorithms and semicolons was during my third form when I was fifteen. On a day like any other - book in hand, awelamesome geeky personality in the other - Abby (My then bestest best friend) came up to me and said something along the lines of "Claire, one of the teachers told my mom [who was also a teacher] that I shouldn't spend so much time with you."

"Why?" I asked, the way only a whiny three year old can.

"Because she said you're a bad influence on me. That I shouldn't pick up from your American influence...Maybe you should try, you know...not sticking out so much."

"But I do try not sticking out. What else does she want from me??" More whining. (By the way, I hadn't even met said teacher before so go figure!)

"I don't know, maybe try changing your accent. The teachers keep saying that your accent is fake and that you're showing off to the other students."

Of course that's what she said. But what I heard was "You know those girls in Dirty Dancing? Yeah well,  you're like that. And you talk like them too. And you know what? You don't even have the legs to pull of their tights. Oh and did I mention you dress like them? You dress like them. Poser."

Cue the waterworks.

As evil as he was initially made out to  be,
at least Snape didn't gossip about Harry

Years later and I still got the same crap from similar teachers. Yes I said crap. And yes, there was a lot of self hate at the time. But it was only two years ago that I realized it wasn't just me going through this. "Don't worry about it," Hui Shin, another friend told me in Mandarin (By now, you won't believe how far I've come in learning the language.) "Teachers do that a lot. They don't mean anything personal about it, they just don't have a lot to talk about"

And here I was, bawling my eyes out and thinking they didn't like me.

In retrospect, I was probably overreacting (Duhh ya think?). But the fact remains that I was a sophomore high school student. OF COURSE I would overreact. That's what we do darn it! And someone's got to realize that the soft, flabby, one cell thick membrane that is our integrity can not stand the simple fact that as human as teachers are, they do talk about students among other teachers, regardless of intent. But if you think that it's all well and healthy, keep scrolling down.

According to EDU.UDYM.com, gossip is categorized as another form of bullying. Yes, even staff room gossip (SUCK THAT Pn. Maung) Yet, teacher bullying gets little attention, says Stuart Twemlow, MD, a psychiatrist who directs the Peaceful Schools and Communities Project at the Menninger Clinic in Houston. But his new study, published in The International Journal of Social Psychiatry, hints that the problem may be more common than people believe.

In his anonymous survey of 116 teachers at seven elementary schools, more than 70% said they believed that bullying was isolated. But 45% admitted to having bullied a student, which all but puts my recurring nightmares of teachers sadistically ruling the world to rest. Great.

Of course, not all teachers are sadistic, gossip horses or baby killers. Just mine. (Har har, kidding!) In fact, Caleb, fellow blogger-slash-teacher practically lives for his students (Which explains why he isn't teaching in my school. Thanks again, god) as you can see in his latest post.  So if you're a teacher and you've done your fair share of spreading hideous rumors about innocent children you don't even know that well, just bear in mind that people do get hurt.

Oh yeah, and we're probably saying the same things about you.

Now my question is: Is it just me or are there other people out there? And if so, then whats your story?