Tag Archives: Teachers

Confessions of a Facebook “Creeper”

04 Wednesday Jan 2017

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I admit it. I search for people all the time who aren’t my friends on Facebook. Usually, this happens during bouts of nostalgia when I find myself thinking about the people with whom I grew-up and wondering where they are, what they are doing, what they look like and how happy they appear.

I want to compare where I am, what I’m doing, what I look like and how happy I am with my childhood friends. I am always relieved and slightly joyous when I see that there has been weight gain, wrinkles, weariness…good. It’s not just me.

There are many people with whom I wish I had kept more regular contact. People with whom I am no longer “friends” – not even on Facebook. Sometimes I creep these people to see what life is like for them. I did this yesterday and spent a considerable amount of time looking at a few childhood friends and I was genuinely glad to see how happy they appeared. I was pleased that they had experienced adventures, travel, fun, love and beauty.

I considered sending a few friend requests, but got lost in thoughts of how it would be perceived by these people. I suffered from depression for most of my time in high school. This was before depression was really understood, talked about or treated. But, the biggest casualty of my depression was my social life. I withdrew from all of my friends and lost most of those relationships. One of the biggest hangers-on of this time period is embarrassment. I feel embarrassed all the time about how I was and I assume that people remember me in a negative light.

I was moody, judgmental, shy, confused, lonely and lost.

During these years my FB posts would have be the kind that you just get tired of seeing so you block the person so you don’t get the constant drone of negative status updates in your feed.

When I think about these years I am always overwhelmed with sadness for the many memories I have about stupid things I did as a result of my state of mind. I’ve been working on forgiving myself, and giving that girl a chance to heal and find acceptance; strangely, creeping on Facebook kind of helps with this. I’ve managed to ‘rekindle’ a few of these lost relationships and they have been extremely meaningful to me. Every time I send a request to a long, lost, friend and then we message back and forth a bit, and eventually just start to share life through the regular news feed, it helps normalize what feels like an extremely polarizing time for me.

I wish I could sit down with all of my old friends and have an open discussion about those years, explain what was going on in my world, express my regret for how I may have treated them, share my sorrow for all the lost time and then make-up for some of that time and move-forward as friends again.

My mind is full of many happy memories with them. I remember hours and hours of time spent together, laughing, talking about boys, playing stupid games, sleepovers, doing makeup, playing sports, passing notes in school…I see snapshots in my mind of us together on hammocks, acting cool at school dances, playing flag football, flirting and silly things like stuffing our shirts with balloons. The memories are full and rich.

But, then there are years where the memories are filled with pictures of school dances, football games, pep rallies and lunches filled with all these faces growing and enjoying life—but mine is not with them. These memories haunt me like shadows. Life was happening all around me, but I wasn’t in it.

So, I creep on facebook. I try to fill-in some of the gaps. I reach-out. I rekindle. I make progress.

I am so thankful for those friends with whom I’ve managed to reconnect because, the truth is, the folks with whom I grew-up really do mean a lot to me. They were the people that helped shape me into who I am today. They were my original cheerleaders, challengers and role-models. They were my squad, my family, my community. They exist in my memory as a deep and vast resource of life, joy, sorrow, lessons-learned, new experiences, comfort and friendship and I am so thankful for the ability to creep into their lives now and get a little piece of what once was.

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Teachers Pt. 2

12 Saturday Mar 2016

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A teacher who, basically, says there is no point educating girls to the one who stapled a classmates t-shirt shut, all coming-up in “Teachers Pt. 2”.

Grade 5: Male teacher. Very dark hair and beard/moustache. Gorgeous eyes. Olive-coloured skin. He was extremely kind and patient. But, he was different. I’m not sure he was from around the area. He was, in particular, a great science teacher. I can’t remember anything else he taught us, but I loved when it was time for science. The main science lesson I remember doing was when we had to colour a white sheet of paper all of one of our highlighter colours, stare at it for a minute, and then look at a white piece of paper and observe how the white paper no longer looked white. This is still something I do occasionally. Or, if it happens by accident (because I’ve been writing notes on a fluorescent piece of paper and then look away), I always remember him and it makes me smile.

Grade 6: Female teacher. Older. Cranky. For a very long time I didn’t like this teacher. In fact, it wasn’t until I was in my late teens that I could appreciate her. She was harsh and impatient while in class. But, she was a great music teacher. She taught me to play the recorder and ukulele. She gave me my first real solo. It was for the Christmas Concert and I was playing “Candy the Clown” and I sang a song called “What is a Gift?”. Now that I am older, she reminds me of a teacher who was trying to hold onto what she believed was the substance of education in the midst of massive changes in the education system.

Grade 7: This was a really weird year in education. The education system was doing a pilot project, splitting grades and teachers. It was set up a bit like high school, so we had different teachers for different subjects and traveled from room to room. But, our home-room teacher was female. She was pretty, and she knew it. Her strengths were in drama. We did a lot of drama. She had big lips, dark skin and wore a lot of perfume. We loved to tease her and I never really understood it at the time, but now I know that she really helped me learn to be vulnerable with the artist inside of me and express myself without feeling embarrassed.

Grade 8: Male teacher. Extremely chauvinistic. Even as I type this grade I feel my fingers pounding more heavily on the keys as my blood boils at the thought of this horrible man. Not only did he make no bones about the fact that he focused more on providing the boys a good education because, after all, they were the ones who were going to grow-up and have to make a living, he also terrified most of us with current events. He used to say that by the time we were 16, World War 3 would be happening. He said “take a look around you. All the boys you see, all these guys who are your friends, will be drafted to fight and most won’t come back.” Yeah, he was a real asshole.

Grade 9: My first year of High School. French: I can’t really remember my French teacher this year. But, I did really good in the subject and enjoyed it, so I guess he/she was a good teacher.

Math: Brutal. But, not necessarily because of the teacher. My teacher was a male, very old (near retirement), wore brown polyester suits, and had a really odd sense of humour (which, most people mocked him for, but I actually liked). I would never say he made math exciting, or was a great teacher in the classroom. But, there were nights when I’d be sitting at the table sobbing because I couldn’t understand my homework and my Mom would get him on the phone and he’d always calm me down and help me through it.

Music: Awesome teacher. Amazing person. There is absolutely nothing negative I could ever say about him. Well, he used to grind his teeth. That could be a bit annoying when you were sitting beside him trying to play. But, really, that was it. He was one of my main supports, and friends, throughout high school.

Phys-ed: Female. Nice enough, but for some reason I found her a bit too intense, or something. Or, maybe it was the fact that she made me dance with a ribbon. For whatever reason, during a game of soccer one day my friend I started pretending we were trying to get the ball from the teacher, but we were actually taking advantage of the situation to kick her on purpose. And then, we accidentally kicked and tripped her and she broke her leg. Whoops. I felt pretty crummy after that.

English: Male. Older. He was teased a lot, but I loved him. He used to read to us, for huge lengths of time. It was heaven to me. I think this was when I first really started to fall in love with literature.

History: Boring. Male. It was towards the end of the day and my desk was by the window so I spent most of my time day-dreaming and sketching what I saw out the window. My teacher was fine, I think it was just a bad time of day for me to have to do something that required so much attention and memory.

Geography: Short, rotund kind of man. He’s kind of who you would picture as a high school football coach (and he may have been). But, he was a good geography teacher. I actually enjoyed geography quite a bit with him. I wanted to do good in his class. But, I remember when a kid showed-up who’s t-shirt was all torn-up and full of holes (because he had been bullied) and the teacher made a big joke of it and how ridiculous it was, teasing the boy, and he made him stand at the front of the class while he stapled the holes in his t-shirt shut. That boy was bullied twice that day.

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Teachers Pt. 1

11 Friday Mar 2016

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I used to want to be a teacher. It was the first thing I had ever wanted to be as a child. Then it became that I wanted to be a missionary first and then a teacher.

I have always thought that teaching is one of the most noble professions along with farming, plumbing and garbage removal. All of these jobs are of utmost importance in our society, require a lot of energy, perseverance and humility. And, they can come with such little recognition, praise or appreciation.

I’ve had some pretty great and some fairly rotten teachers in my life.

I thought I would take a look back and see how many I could remember, what I remembered them for and whether, or not, they had a long-lasting, positive impact on my life.

Instead of naming names, I will use grades/subjects, etc.

Kindergarten: My teacher here was female, cheerful and rotund. In fact, she was exactly like “Merryweather” the fairy from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. I remember nap time. I had an awesome homemade quilt that had hippopotami on it and I was always extremely proud when it came time to take it out. I also remember singing “Teddy Bear Picnic”.

Grade 1: This was a tumultuous year for me. My family had moved from our home in the country to town and my parents’ marriage was on the rocks. This was when i started to steal. I would steal things from other kids in my class. My teacher in that grade was extremely patient, kind and just. She was an older lady and very petite. I remember that she used to chew gum all the time, mouth open, rolling it around and making crackling noises. I thought it was so cool.

Grade 2: Another female teacher. She was very tall and very slender. One of my favourite teachers of all-time. She had this inner peace and strength that made me feel like everything was going to be ok. She was funny and had an awesome laugh. There always seemed to be a bit of mischief in her eyes, which was probably why I liked her so much.

Grade 3: This was around the year my parents divorced. At the very least, it was the school year leading-up to it. It’s funny, because it’s the only year of school that I can’t remember who taught me. I do remember the librarian during this year, however. Sadly, she passed away last year. But, to this day, she was one of the kindest, softest, sweetest, most pleasant and peacemaking people I have ever met.

Grade 4: My teacher this year was a man. He also happened to be a local radio DJ at night. Awesome, I know. I remember he let us dissemble computer hard drives, radios, etc. just to explore what was in them. He also let us do air-band competitions. My friends and I did “She’s Got the Look” by Roxette and the Joyrides. I played keys. This teacher always had a sweet smell about him like a fresh pad of paper and scotch tape got together and had a baby. He introduced me to Sinead O’Connor and taught me that it was ok to think outside the box and be different. You could tell he loved all the students and that he truly cared about us and was in our corner. He is now my mom’s neighbour. I recently visited his house and watched an old video he had of my class. That year, his class, was one of the most life-transforming years for me. I still refer back to the lessons he taught me when I need a little extra guidance.

And, I still listen to Sinead O’Connor.

(Teachers-Pt. 2, continuing tomorrow. And, believe me, there are some good ones coming)

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Prom

25 Thursday Feb 2016

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To this day I can’t remember what kind of reasoning or excuse I must have given to my  prom date (who also happened to be my brother) when I drove us to my teacher’s house before heading to the prom.

This action is something that plagued me with intense self-disdain and embarrassment for years.

‘How completely ridiculous am I that I did something like that?’

As an adult I can understand why I did it and I have been telling myself to cut the teenage me a break.

My home life was not stable and could be fairly volatile at times. This teacher was one of the few people in my life that made me feel safe.

I was attending prom despite the fact that I desperately did not want to go. I had never been interested in attending a prom. But, it seemed important to my mother that I attend, and then my brother offered to go with me and I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or let anyone down (see my “People Pleaser” post).

Because I felt like I had zero control over anything and was about to walk into a world that I believed would chew me up and spit me out like I was yesterday’s gum, I needed to see a friendly face.

I went to his house to get some confidence.

If he said that everything was going to be great and that I looked lovely, then just maybe, I could survive the horror that lay-before me.

When I look-back on photos of my prom I’m always struck by how much I look like the ghost of an old grandma who died on the way to a wedding. Truthfully.

Our prom theme was, perhaps, the most disgusting theme ever used for a prom: “Truly, Madly, Deeply” based on that, ‘oh so amazing’ (makes me want to puke to this day), song by ‘Savage Garden’. We didn’t walk in the grand march, but I think we watched everyone else doing it as that horrible song played over and over and over again.

While at prom I did have some fun, despite myself. My brother and I danced a fair amount. He was incredible and kept saying things like: “Let’s show these assholes how to dance’.

I think I ditched him pretty unceremoniously at the end. I can’t really remember the chain of events, but I don’t think I stuck-around prom for that long. I remember going to a friend’s house afterwards and eating a crap load of junk food while watching a movie or something.

Most of me just wanted to forget that the whole, horrible, night had ever happened.

But, years later, after being able to forgive myself for the stupid things I did when I was a lost teenager, searching desperately for security, acceptance and self, I think back on my prom and the words that come to mind are not that it was lame, torturous, unimportant or stupid.

Now, when I think about that night, these are the words that float to the top: My brother is amazing. He loves me so much that he was willing to do that for me.

And, we really did show those assholes how to dance.

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