Theory: Teachers Hate Me

Despite my intelligence and equally important street smarts, I have never really gotten good grades in school (save for second semester, senior year of high school when everyone else stopped trying and I got 5 A's and 2 B's). I'm not really sure why this is, other than the fact that my academic career has always been a fight. Not a struggle, mind you, but a fight. Teachers seem to hate me for some reason. I don't know why. I don't goof off in class (too much). I don't openly challenge their authority. I don't skip an inordinate amount of classes. All I ever do is try and listen to what they are saying, do my homework, and study for tests. For all my effort, I always have a couple of grades that are lower than they should be.

My earliest recollection of a teacher hating me for no reason was in third grade. I lived in DC and so I went to the awful DC public school system. Even at that young age, I knew what was going on. This was the first time I remember being separated into "reading groups." I think there were 3 groups, dumb, regular, and smart. I don't know if we were supposed to figure out those designations, but it seemed obvious to me that all the smart kids were in one group: the one I wasn't in. This would have been fine if I thought I was challenged by whatever book we were reading in the medium group, but even at 8 years old, I knew I was smart enough to be in the smart group. I apparently complained to my mother about this and being the former teacher that she is, she asked the teacher to switch me. From what I gather, the teacher would not switch me to the smart group for some reason and that lead to my first IQ test.

I remember going to some home/office in DC to take the test. I wasn't nervous at all because I knew that I could rock the test. The seeds were being planted for my theory that my intelligence is never accurately assessed by academics. I don't remember much about the test except a part where they kept asking me a bunch of increasingly difficult vocabulary words to see which ones I knew. I remember the last one they asked that I didn't know the definition for was "mantis." I guess at that age, I wasn't quite the amateur entomologist that I am today. I got a good enough score on the IQ test that the tester reccomended that I be put in the smart group (I still have this letter). Confronted with this, the teacher finally relented and allowed me to take my rightful spot amongst the elementary school intellectual elite. [Side note: I don't know what I got on the IQ test, but according to many internet tests I've taken in the last few years, my IQ could be anywhere from 110-147, I'm guessing somewhere in the lower-middle of that range.]

The second problem I had with teachers came that same year. We were given an assignment to make a comic strip. Well, this seemed like great fun to me. After a little while, I decided to make a comic about my favorite cartoon at the time: M.A.S.K. Some of you might remember that this was a G.I. Joe-type cartoon where the heroes and villians all had some sort of mask they would wear when they fought. I'm not doing it justice, but you can check out the link here. So I make my comic strip, which was probably pretty forumlaic, like the show. I was proud of my work and titled it: "Mayhem's Revenge." I think the bad guys were called Mayhem in the show.

I thought for sure that I would at least get a pretty good grade on it, if not a sticker. When I got my comic back, I don't remember if I got a grade at all. There was just a note at the top of the paper in bright red ink, accusing me of copying one of my classmates. See, M.A.S.K. was a popular show amongst my friends and one of the other students had done a comic about it and coincidentally titled his: "The Revenge of Mayhem." I admit, that looks fishy, but why did she automatically think that I was the one who copied the other guy? I'm sure the stories could not have been that similar that she would think anything but the title was copied. The only logical explanation for the accusation: teachers hate me.

Luckily, I went to school in Maryland the next year to escape the DC public schools. I would say that we moved to MD, but our house was not finished being built, so I had the great experience of living in DC, but going to school in MD for a year. I'm actually not sure how my parents pulled that one off. Usually, such tactics are reserved for illegally recruited soccer players, not chubby kids that teachers hate for some reason. In any event, I thought the MD school would be a fresh start, where I would not have to fight teachers for the treatment other kids automatically receieved. I was wrong.

One of the classes we had in MD that I don't remember ever having in DC was music class. I am a pretty good singer (ask anyone who has heard my drunken rendition of "Thunderstruck.") But I just never liked to sing the songs we had to sing in music class and/or chorus. I still sang them (sung them?) though. The music teacher had a big laminated award that she would give out every week to a different student. It was called the "Super Singer." After class ended, she would give it to, well, I have no idea what the criteria were for this award, but I knew that pretty much everyone got it at least once. Well, apparently there are fewer weeks in the school year than there were kids in my class because I never got the Super Singer. I was also kicked out of chorus for reasons I have since forgotten. Both lead to one conclusion: teachers hate me.

The next incident came in 5th grade. Our class was going to put on a musical called "Let George do it." It was about George Washington and how great he was. The music teacher chose all the parts and I was hoping to get a decent part, but not have a solo or anything like that. I was still shy at that age and did not have the advantage of liquid courage to allow my the ease at which I sing in front of large groups today. When the cast list was posted, I eagerly awaited my turn to see which part I got. As I scanned the list, my heart sunk as I read: Catheter Man........Spotlight Operator. Apparently, my teacher had such little faith in my singing and acting ability or revulsion from my looks that she not only didn't want me on the stage, but I had to be behind the audience. Naturally, my attitude about musical theater drastically changed and did not recover for years.

Aside from ending my acting career before it began, the list also announced a full cast rehearsal for some date in the future. Now, being pissed off and young as I was, I read that to mean just what it said: cast. I was the bullshit spotlight operator, so I did not have to be there, right? Wrong. After I skipped the rehearsal to hang out with a friend from DC, I learned that I would no longer be the spotlight operator. Cool. In case you couldn't tell, I never wanted to do that in the first place. So when the other kids with real parts were rehearsing, me and the other rejects made costumes and scenery and props.

My task was to make a sandwich board with a huge construction paper apple on each side. This was supposed to represent Washington Apples. One guy made a damn good washington monument that someone stood inside and another guy made a Capitol building to represent Washington, DC. I was fine making this stuff because I did not like the music teacher and I am a pretty mediocre artist (one of my many mediocre talents). A few days before the show, they sprung the news on us that we would have to wear the costumes we made in the play. WHAT THE FUCK? First, you don't have faith in me to have a real part, then you make me the spotlight operator, then you take that away from me, now I have to stand in this dumb costume like a moron for about 1 minute at the beginning and end of the play? I was not happy to say the least. And I made it known. After a rehearsal in front of the lower grades, the music teacher actually had to tell me to smile because I looked so miserable up there in my lame apple costume. Above all else, I am a professional, and I did my job during the play no matter how pissed I was. All this because teachers hate me.

In 6th grade, we advanced to middle school. Sweet. Another new beginning where I could make a fresh start and be surrounded by about 7 times as many kids. There would have to be others who would take some of the teacher hate off of me. Well, there were, but they dragged me down with them. About a month or two into the year, I made friends with 2 other kids in my English class. It was honors English (I was finally deservedly in all honors classes), so the kids weren't dumb, but they were fuck ups. We all had one thing in common: the love of making fun of those different from us.

One guy decided to make comic book covers about certain people in our classes. They were actually pretty well drawn and very funny at the time. When I helped him change a few things on one of the covers, like the placement of one girl's hands, he said I should draw one. I agreed and began on a caricature of some guy who was German and therefore, naturally, a Nazi in the comic. I really didn't progress too far at all. I just drew a face and about half a body when I stopped. I probably ran out of time or just wanted to finish later. The main guy then said we should sign our work like artists do. I said no, but he signed anyway. The third member of our little group signed his.

I thought nothing of it until the next morning when over the intercom, the vice principal blasted: "Miss Grandy, would you send JP, Philip, and Catheter Man down to the office." I was pretty embarrassed and didn't know what was going on. Incidentally, I would be much more embarassed in that class later in the year when I hurled on the floor due to some apparently tainted donuts. So we get to the principal's office and it turns out that the notebook we had drawn in was JP's journal, which the teacher had seen and reported our little artwork to the principal. The other thing I didn't know was that JP had taken the liberty of signing my unfinished drawing for me. Not good.

I have to be honest. I don't remember much about the comics, but they were more funny than offensive. I'm sure that the students depicted would not have found them funny, but if they never saw them, then no harm, no foul, right? Nope. I guess the vice principal decided to take a hard line stance on any art-related teasing and decided to suspend us all for the day. A little harsh if you ask me. So they called our parents and waited for them to pick us up.

JP and Philip's parents came within the first hour and they left. My parents, on the other hand were unreachable. That day they had gone to look at beach houses and this was a time before cell phones, so I was stuck in the principal's office until further notice. By lunchtime, there was still no word from my parents, but the powers that be allowed me to get lunch when I wanted. I was too embarrased to go to my normal lunch period, so I went to the other one and brought my lunch back to the office to eat. My parents finally came in late in the day and after what had to be an argument about how stupid it is for the principal to suspend me for this, they took me home. Another traumatic moment that did not have to occur, but did because teachers hate me.

Thats all for now. I'm sure I'll think of some more later.