Spare the Stick and Save a Child

Author: Mallica Patel

TW: Suicidal Thoughts | Anxiety | Non-Verbal Abuse | Public Shaming

The truth is that I’ve almost never had good teachers. They’ve always been negative or problematic in some way and it is only much later that I came across a few teachers who I could still call upon or appreciate towards my growth as a learner.

In 7th standard I was doing very badly in math. There seemed to be no way around it and my mother decided to put me in tuitions. The teacher responsible was our neighbor and it was taken for granted that every kid who grew up in the premises would learn from her at one point in their academic journey. I started learning math and science from her. She was known to be a terror and was extremely strict to the point that students were petrified of her. I always had anxiety and it didn’t take much time for me to develop extreme fear towards her and the classes.

She was so strict that my grades improved while my anxiety kept increasing. She would beat the kids mercilessly and employed certain unconventional tactics to make students study. For example if we did badly in a test she would make us stand outside her home with paper pinned to our t-shirts which read, (say) ‘I scored poorly in my test today’ or make us stand a corner of the room where everyone could see us. We were teenagers by then, around 15–16. Not that it makes the trauma less lethal. We also saw other students be mercilessly beaten or harassed and that made me feel worse. She scared me so much that there was a phase during my 4 year long journey where I rebelled and refused to study seriously. I lied all the time to everyone and didn’t study at all. I didn’t know why I was doing this but I went off the hook and my grades dropped a lot and I was constantly caught lying to my parents and the teacher.

I have really dark memories of wanting to get run over by a car on my way back from school just so that I wouldn’t have to visit her.

This one time I opened up to my mother and in frustration, rather than empathy, she told me that if I didn’t want to go anymore I was free to quit. The teacher was great friends with my mother and she convinced my mother that this was a wrong decision. So I came home from school only to realize that the hellish experience continues. That memory of betrayal and the feeling of not having an escape haunts me to this day. I wish I could reach out and hug the old me and tell her to quit.

As I grew older I began studying very hard, not because I wanted to but as a defense mechanism to protect myself from any harm.

I became a machine and tried to spend all my time studying, and not allowing any form of enjoyment into my life. I would feel terribly guilty if I had some fun by myself or did something which made me happy.

I think it is this lack of individuality which made me choose a career option I had no interest in and later ended up quitting.

When I started therapy in my late teens I realised that most of my anxiety issues stem from this experience. Even today I suffer from an anxiety disorder I have to keep in check on a regular basis.

She has this absurd quality of seeming the opposite of evil in her social interactions. And it is because of that that my parents are still great friends with her and I still have to interact with her on a daily basis.

About the Author: Mallica Patel

Mallica is a 22 year old aspiring filmmaker and writer, eager to tell stories, who sometimes blogs here.

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Read our story Teacher Bullying: Abuse of Power by Dr. Aheli Dey here

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