I Was Given Lines At School

@margaretv When my stepsister was in the fourth grade, she had a teacher who sent the kid or kids in question home with a note. What the teacher didn't add to the message was an additional written punishment by the student was "I must shut my big mouth" written a thousand times (!) - and the kid was suspended from class until he or she finished it at home, with no credit for missed class time.

When Linda started the lines, my mom caught her at it and got the story out of her. My mom was furious that any teacher would tell her daughter she had a big mouth. She recruited another mother, whose daughter was in my sister's class and had the same punishment assigned, and they took Linda and Janice to see the principal. They got the teacher out of class while the principal examined the punishments. She then turned to the teacher, and said,"Since when do you or anyone else in this school tell these kids they have big mouths?" She reinstated the girls and that was the end of that - except that teacher had it in for Linda and Janice for the remainder of their school year.

@MaryJanine 1000 times was excessive anyway

@cherokeepatti I agree. But this teacher had apparently gotten away with this nonsense for a number of years and the principal was unaware of it until my mother and Janice's mother came to call.

@MaryJanine Sometimes that’s all it takes. But her having it in for them till school was out was not good either.

@cherokeepatti In our days (yours and mine) teachers thought they were absolute. They thought you never told the truth. The younger you were, the truer this was.

When I was in first grade, some little two-by-four who was the teacher's pet marked up with crayon the baskets we were learning to weave and blamed it on me. I sat on the other side of the room and learned fast this little girl didn't like me, so I avoided her. But the teacher believed her and disavowed my denials. She took me out into the hallway and threatened to send me back into kindergarten if I "didn't tell the truth" and told some other first grade teacher. "Oh, we got a problem here. This little girl was bad and she won't admit to it." Then she made me stand in the doorwell until lunchtime.

The next day, she punished me further by producing a piece of drawing paper and a can of broken crayons. She made me sit next to her and "scribble like a baby." I cried all morning, and when we broke for lunch, she announced in front of everyone, "This afternoon, you scribble some more."

I ran home crying, and told my mother about it. She kept me home that afternoon and we saw the principal the next morning. She asked us to wait, and we waited a good twenty-five minutes. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall, because I didn't know who said what to who, but when she returned I was sent home again and returned naturally the next day,

It hurt that I was punished a day-and-a-half for something I didn't even do. Mom knew I didn't lie to her, but it hurt worse than anything physical.

@MaryJanine Yeah I know. I had a bladder infection in first grade & the doctor told me to take Azo & my aunt wrote a note to the teacher telling her that if I needed to use the bathroom before recess to let me go. The first morning I had to go, was still burning a bit, & the teacher let me. The spoiled brat in our class also raised her hand & asked & the teacher let her go with me. We walked inside the bathroom & the girl let out a loud scream just to hear herself echo I guess. When we went back to class the teacher told us both we wouldn’t be getting recess. It was raining that day & she had us sit on the gym floor while the other children did dances etc. I was glad to be sitting, the floor was cool & the gym was overheated. The teacher did me a favor & didn’t even know it.

@MaryJanine I got kicked out of a junior high science class one time for 3 days because a girl who transferred from another school asked if anyone had a pen to spare, she had forgotten hers. I handed her one of mine. The teacher pointed at me & said loudly “If you don’t change your attitude you can just get out of class!” I heard the whole class gasp & I stood up & told him “There is nothing wrong with my attitude & I don’t intend to change it” and walked out. I sat outside the class for 3 days until he told me to come back inside. I was a straight-A student in science up until then, I did more work than what was asked of me & he marked me down an entire grade. His attitude was the problem. He hated students that transferred from the other junior high school across the city and she wasn’t the only one. Neither one of us had done anything wrong but he took his wrath out on me for handing her a spare ink pen. And he had the habit of going into his supply closet out in the hallway & getting a nip from a bottle of what looked like vodka every once in a while. A few years later he was no longer working at the school & was teaching at a prison about 20 miles away.

@cherokeepatti Junior high science...oh, yeah, the good old days.

The seventh grade class teacher was the homeroom for one of the two classes (we had a double class for three years, three homeroom teachers who taught one class one subject while their class took another). The science teacher was very strict and straitlaced. He was one of the ones who yelled and gave out lines at the drop of a hat. I was afraid of him then and I suppose I would be today, too.

@MaryJanine I have a feeling that the one I dealt with got told to resign or be fired after some students told off on him, he was going to the hall closet way too often and smelled like liquor.

@cherokeepatti We are not that mentally bankrupt nowadays and so desperate that we hire alcoholics to deal with our kids - and that's what they are, alcoholics.

@MaryJanine Quite a few teachers are being arrested for participating in riots this summer. Does that surprise you MaryJanine?

@cherokeepatti Not especially. They were probably demonstrators as college students and undergraduates, and they never grew out of it as adults.

Speaking of riots, did you hear about that idiot who hit the policeman over the head with his skateboard? I was floored when I heard this.

@MaryJanine yes I heard about that.