7th grade teachers

I had four 7th grade teachers who literally changed my life. Three of them changed it for the better. One got me into writing, the other into logic, and the third taught me many intangible lessons about being a woman. She taught by example. (Luv you, Mrs. C!) This post isn't about those three.

It's about you, Mrs. D. Ashworth. I say D because I don't remember your first name (I think it was Diane) but if I did I'd surely put you on blast for all of the internet to see, for you are most foul. Why? You ask? Because you hated the fact that I was an A student. All the rest of your star pupils (save Bich, the Chinese girl) were the apple of your eye, but me? You hated me. You sent me to intervention for walking into class as the bell rang, when you sat there and watched me limp down the hall, returning from the nurse after having sprained my ankle in P.E. You spent abnormal amounts of effort looking for an excuse to flunk me on something...anything. You gave me my first and only F on a major project, because I created a 3d model of my island and did a virtual tour rather than the cardboard brochures that everyone else turned in. Yes, you did specify that brochures should have a table of contents, but A) It wasn't that kind of brochure, B) That was only 25% of the grade, and C) MOST educators would encourage that kind of creativity. But it is not for those reasons that I write today.

I didn't know at the time what you were, as your actions were far out of my realm of experience up to that point. But I know that everything you said directly to me, everything you did to me, was designed to make me feel somehow inferior...to take me down a peg. But not even that inspired my post today. Mrs. Ashworth, I just looked at my calendar, and realized that today is or near the anniversary of the day you sent me home in tears. You never knew that, and probably never will, but today I can tell you that I credit you for being the first to begin molding me into the angry black woman typing this today.

It was a few days after Black History Month had ended. I remember, because that's how you started the lesson, saying "We should have gotten to this last month, but we're behind. Better late than never..." Then you introduced the topic of American Slavery. I don't even remember the lesson; it's all obliterated by the comment you made toward the made toward the end. We were reading from the textbook, and exclaiming over the conditions it described. You stood with a questioning look on your face, and said "Well, a lot of people think it was hard, but when slavery was over, many of them chose to stay. I mean, why wouldn't they? They had guaranteed food, clothing, and housing. Why would you give all that up?" It wasn't so much the comment (actually, yes it was) as it was the attitude that you delivered it with. As if the runaways and those that chose to leave after emancipation were somehow ingrates for rejecting the 400 years of hospitality they and their ancestors experienced. At that moment, all the pieces fell into place.

I knew why you treated me the way you did. I knew why, in your only known instance of rejecting school policy, you allowed us to choose our own seating on the first day, and made it the official seating chart. I saw how by doing that, you effectively sanctioned a segregated classroom. In the next unit, we learned about the Civil War, and I got to listen to you tell me about why we should reject the notion that the Confederate flag is racist, and respect it for the rich history and solidarity it represents. But by then, I'd long stopped letting myself feel your words.

I don't know if the State of Louisiana is still allowing you to warp and scar children at your whim, but I hope not. Thirteen years ago, you broke my heart. I thank you for it now, but don't think it's okay. If I could have one wish for this post, it's that it's being read to you right now, as you sit in a window at a rest home, ridden by bed sores and stinking with neglect. I hope it's being read by a tattoed orderly on work release, who sometimes pees in your denture water for kicks. I hope you sit there everyday wondering if you've been abandoned by all but God. And I hope you're happy with your guaranteed food, clothing, and shelter.