Experience and advice on dealing with teachers

Hello guys! How is everything going? I hope things are going great and if not I hope this blog helps in brightening up your day ^^

So, today I'm going to be talking about a not so great experience that I had and if you are going through something similar, I hope you find this helpful

And please don't sympathize, I don't need sympathy. I made this blog to share my advice and experience and not for getting sympathy. I don't need sympathy.

Warning : long blog ahead ^~^

E X P E R I E N C E

Okay, so this experience is not about a school teacher oh no no, this is about one of my tutors. Okay before I start I think I should explain some things

So, this went on for 3 years until I was like you know what I'm done. Okay, so at in our school we don't get to pick the subjects that we want to study, the education system does that for us, so we were learning English and 3 other languages at that time, I could manage two of them and stumble my way through them, but this one language I just could not get the hang of it, and it's the local language spoken here, but I don't know it cause well, I'm not from where my school is located so I hope that made sense and now let me just let it all out, all of it.

So, as I could not keep up with what was being taught at school in that one language class, I decided I needed a tutor, normal thinking, a lot of people have them. So most of them I had to go to where they were teaching which would not work around my schedule because I was quite a active kid with dance classes and all that so we got a tutor which would come to my house and teach me.

Sounds good right?

Wrong.

She would come to my house, my place of comfort and happiness and make me feel completely worthless and like trash.

Okay let me guess what you are thinking, but Ann as people always say no one can make you feel something without your input. You are right, yes. Even I thought that at first being the positive little kid I was, but ahaha little did I know what was waiting for me.

Often we tend to forget that education is of course important and it creates our personality and makes us a better and well informed human beings and feeds our curiousity, but it's a business as well. It's a industry of millions of dollars. I'm not saying to look at it that way, I'm just reminding that a school is looked at through different points of view.

And my tutor, she looked at it through the business point of view.

So, oh well let's get into the whole not so great part of this.

The first class was good, I felt good, I could follow what she was teaching I was like omg did I really find such a great tutor?

Once again

Wrong.

Soon she started not explaining what she was teaching and just made me write the same word over and over and over and over again. And I was like she is the adult I guess she knows what she is doing, so let me be a good girl and listen to her!

We have a test in that class, I started crying in the middle of the test because I had absolutely no clue what to write. I gave nearly an empty answer sheet with a few guesses and other random things I could . Heaven knows how, but I ed. But I was doing worse in that class than ever.

I thought this might be the way that I might be getting used to my new teacher, I guess.

So, I got those terrible results, and then when I told her my marks, she... She completely started blaming me and started telling me teaching me was a waste of time, and that I would never be able to do well, and that she is fed up of me and how all of her other students are very bright. I thought of course, she invested time in me and I dissapointed her, she has the right to be angry.

She won't always be like this, right?

For the third time

Wrong.

Slowly, every single class she started telling me how worthless and good for nothing I was, she continuously kept comparing me to the rest of her students and I was not used to this, like at all. And after many such classes, I started thinking that she might be right.

Next year, which was 6th grade in one of the tests that I had I worked really hard, like put in all that effort and I scored a 19/20 I thought that was good.

And I told her I got a 19/20, I can smile and this now, but back then I was completely devastated.

She said that I ended up getting those marks "accidentally" and that she honestly thought that there would have been a mistake in the marking because she would never expect something like this from a kid like me.

My self confidence was shattered, and that confident happy kid inside me collapsed.

She continued with her ineffective teaching methods which were not explaining what she was making me write, using very harsh words.

She taught quite a few kids, and she mostly taught them more than one subject, I was her only student to whole she taught only one subject, so of course the tutoring fees will be less than the others and she often used that to make me feel guilty and ashamed.

That she could be doing so much more with better students and get so much more money. And how all her students give her lavish gifts and I should do the same. This was one of the first times I thought she was wrong.

Going through my old diary, I feel sad of how an adult did not realise the value of her words to a young kid.

She is a tutor, a teacher and they are suppose to be the people we look up to, the ones who set a time model for us. And their words hold great value to young minds and they play a huge part in shaping our personalities, I don't think she realised that.

But in academics criticism plays a huge role, we give test get back constructive criticism and try to improve.

These harsh words would be for my own good and they will be regarding just academics right?

And for the fourth time

Wrong.

Soon, they stopped being just about studies.

Because I did not ever say anything to her, I won't blame her for not realizing how bad I felt.

I started dreading every single class, before every single class I did everything in my power to escape. Pretended to oversleep, locked my room, stayed in the washroom for a long time, pretended to lose the study material and pretended that my pen stopped working and many other excuses.

Coming back to the criticism, my birthday was coming up and I was like really excited about it and I was wearing a dress which I bought for my birthday when she arrived for that days class, and she said that the dress looked not that great and then she asked me from where I bought it and I said the name of the shop and she said something along the lines of they don't even have foreign goods and that its not a good store, and the dress is not that good either.

A little backstory here, I was already insecure about the dress because it was what people would call "girly" and already people at school were kind of giving me a hard time for being "girly" so this just added fuel to the fire.

She slowly started criticising everything, from my desk, my room to the pens I used. It was slowly getting worse, she even started criticising for garden! And basically everything.

This is when it hit me, it wasn't me. She criticized basically everything and everyone. And that made more and more sense as every class ed by.

And when I reflected back I could not even manage the basics properly after 2 years of tutoring at this point. And that realization hit me so hard, at first I was in denial that this was just me being lazy and that this was just another excuse, but the more I thought of it, the more sense it made.

The last straw was after another test I completely broke down not because of how terrible I knew I did but thinking of her reaction and the the reaction of my teachers and how this was basically useless at this point and how much better I was doing earlier.

I ran to the washroom and cried and just felt empty. I was tired of trying to please her, tired of being constantly criticized.

So, I got rid of her. I told my parents how I have been feeling and that I want to discontinue the tutoring, and they asked if they should find me another tutor, I spoke with confidence after what felt like forever and said no. I was so sure of it. And so I told her that we don't have to study this language the next academic year and then the classes stopped.

Finally.

I have gone for other tuition classes even after this experience and then have been helpful. All of it depends on the teacher.

But we still had that language. Guess who ed without tutoring and with not great but not terrible marks either. Guess who ?

Um, you?

Right!

After so may wrongs there was finally a right and that made my confidence develop. Really. And I felt happy.

I want you, the beautiful soul reading this that you are not defined by your mistakes. They shape you, but they should not break you.

You are important, beautiful, talented, smart and worth of happiness and being successful.

Don't be so hard on yourself, speak up, have faith in yourself and your abilities, love yourself.

The only person who will be there forever is you. So you have to love yourself and take care of yourself.

You are you and that's your superpower.

M Y   A D V I C E

Before we start, different things work for different people, this is just what worked for me and my personal advice, what works for me may or may not work for you.

My advice if you are in a similar situation is :

1. Don't think too much about what they say.

This is one of the mistakes I made, I kept repeating she said to myself in my head making me feel really negative about myself.

2. Talk to them or your parents, put your emotions in words.

This was yet another mistake I made, please please speak up and say something to maybe your parents or to them if you are fine with that and think that it will help, tell them what they said or did and how that made you feel, put your emotions in words.

3. Take the constructive criticism

Just take that out of all they say, how you can improve and work on it, don't let the other parts get to you, they are suppose to help you with your studies so take that part, and if their techniques are not working for you, then let them or your parent know gently. Whatever you think is the best for you. Because you are the best human to decide that.

4. Be sure of your thoughts and incidents.

The only you have is yourself, so you have to be confident and speak with confidence. Make your thoughts and feelings clear to the person you are speaking with.

5. Talk to a friend and someone you trust.

Let them know what you are going through and how it's making you feel, tell them how you feel and talk it out, it's a way to take it out. Make sure you feel comfortable and that this is helping, make sure that they help you in being positive through this whole experience.

I have no experience in dealing with such a teacher at school, so that may require to be dealt with differently, this is just my experience with a personal tutor.

I in no way am trying to say all tutors are bad, this is just a experience, and again all of it depends on each individual teacher and each individual.

Wow, thats a long blog, I really hope you found it helpful.

Thank you all for taking the time to read and listening to what I had to say, I really appreciate it.

, you are talented, beautiful and worthy and capable of success.

And in the words of Ruby Granger,

Have a productive week ^^