one note is good enough for me.
so thereās this girl in my spanish 2 class. weāll call her kayla.
kayla is a sophomore. she is funny and outspoken and a little crazy. the main thing to remember about kayla is that she will stand up for herself when needed. and thatās why something happened with her and my spanish teacher.
weāll call my teacher miss irving. miss irving has been teaching spanish for 30 years. sheās a little forceful, hates technology, and hates when people donāt just listen to her without questioning it.
it began when kayla entered class late near the beginning of the school year. āsorry, maāam,ā she said to miss irving. āi was at the counselorās.ā
miss irving looked up at kayla and asked for a pass. kayla didnāt have one, but she said that miss irving would be able to call the counselor and the counselor would verify her visit. miss irving refused to do so and gave her detention on the spot. kayla started trying to justify her own actions, and she received yet another detention.
this marked the beginning of a long, long feud. every time kayla did something, miss irving would reprimand her for it. kayla put on chapstick or began to eat in class and miss irving began to yell. kayla read a paragraph slower than the rest of us and miss irving would snap at her. slowly, kayla began to get fed up.
the last straw for her was when she asked miss irving to go to the counselor during class, and it changed everything.
āmiss irving? i have an appointment with the counselor down the hall. may i go?ā
āobviously not,ā my teacher snapped back. āyou canāt leave in the middle of the class.ā
ābut i need to see her, i have an appointme-ā
āi donāt care. youāre going to translate that paragraph-ā
āmaāam, i already translated it-ā
āwell, then iāll give you more work to do-ā
at that word, all of the heads in the clasroom turned. itās an unspoken rule that you donāt say no to miss irving. but kayla had fire in her voice, and was now standing up and glaring at the teacher.
āexcuse me?ā miss irving responded, and kayla went off.
āno matter what i do, you get on to me about it. i have issues that i need to take care of that you refuse to understand. youāre a teacher. youāre supposed to care about us. itās your job! listen to me carefully: i. have. mental. health. problems. and there are times i need to eat in class or i need to go to the counselorās office because of it, so could you just get off of my ass about it and try to understand?ā
miss irving turned beet red and sent her to the principalās office.
what followed was a battle between the two. miss irving kept emailing kaylaās parents, but kaylaās parents took their daughterās side. then my teacher emailed kaylaās other teachers and asked them to take her side, but the other teachers said they didnāt ever have problems with kayla.
kayla went to talk to the principal about the situation and told her what was going on. the principal talked to miss irving, and miss irving lost her teacher of the year award for that year. she also received a strike on her teaching record for refusing to respect a studentās mental health protocol. and kayla won.
miss irving still teaches our class and we still have kayla with us. now, miss irving doesnāt hide her hatred for kayla at all. she expresses it fully to her other classes. and most of those other classes hate her as well.
but my class and i love kayla. because kayla has a newfound power, and she doesnāt take it for granted. instead, she uses it to help us.
and this matters so much to me because, one day, she helped me.
i have generalized anxiety disorder. one of the methods i can use to calm myself down is by doodling, and doodling also helps me listen more closely to the teacherās lesson. so i started doodling on the edges of my papers in spanish a lot, especially when we started having tests every class period and it became very anxiety-inducing for me.
miss irving started taking points off for every doodle i made. and i mean A LOT of points. i drew an eye in the corner of a worksheet once and i got an 80 instead of a 100. when i tried to explain that it was for my anxiety, she didnāt care. so now i had even more anxiety because i couldnāt reduce my anxiety.
one day, miss irving was lecturing and i was doodling, when she started to yell at me for it.
i canāt remember a lot about what happened because at that moment i went into a full blown panic attack. but what i do remember is kayla standing up and yelling at her.
āwhat are you doing? stop! sheās obviously having a panic attack!ā
she came over to my desk and led me through breathing exercises. calmed me down. told me my doodle of half a face looked really good, asked me how long iād been taking art and about my disorder. the entire class was silent, watching, and miss irving was fuming.
when i was calm enough to, i thanked kayla, and she squeezed my hand in a silent alliance.
then miss irving walked back to the whiteboard and never said anything about my doodles again.
the moral of the story? just because a teacher or principal or parent is older than you doesnāt mean they deserve to be obeyed no matter what. if what your āeldersā say to you or do to you belittles you, tears you down, or keeps you from being able to get help or be a better person, they are not doing their job, and you can stand up for yourself and others.
donāt be afraid to question the authority just because they say they shouldnāt be questioned.
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