If you could sit in a room with a teacher of your choice from your childhood and tell them anything, what would you say?

[BruhWhy]

I often think about running into my P.E teacher and letting her know that what she didn't know about me was that I was being neglected by my parents, and was ashamed about the way I looked and smelled... also ashamed and worried about the fact I didn't have period products, and that's why I made excuses and forged notes to get out of P.E - I wasn't lazy and stupid, she didn't need to shout at me in front of everyone and say these things, all she needed to do was ask and I'd have told her...

I'd also love to tell my lovely English teacher that him telling me that my essay was the best he'd read that year was the first compliment I'd ever gotten from a teacher, and I still think about the way that made me feel to this day

To my year 7/8 french teacher- you were the shittest teacher I have ever had; i learnt nothing, hated your lessons & now I live in France haha. It was zero use to me.

To my head of year in yr 8- the girl you stuck up for was a bully & she had (still does have) serious mental health issues! You should have dealt with her behaviour & got her help rather than sticking up for her!

Your teaching up to gcse was great. Your a level teaching was shit. Honestly if after 2 years of saying the same things someone hasnt got it then you really need to try a different tack. Its not my fault you couldnt explain in a way I understood and could grasp.

Music teacher (now dead) I really liked you. What I didnt appreciate at the time was how feminist you were. Rip.

School dance teacher - give all the children in your classes the opportunity to love dance, not just the talented ones. Some of us were quiet, shy, unconfident children with self esteem issues who would have loved to have been encouraged instead of shoved at the back. Took up dancing as an adult and loved it. Still she won lots of competitions with her star squad so I doubt she cares about those people who wanted to dance for the love of dance even if they weren't very good.

All teachers. Dont sit me next to the badly behaved naughty children because I'm quiet and obedient. I want to work hard and get on. In fact if you could take all the children who want to learn out of the classes and put us in a class all of our own that would be fab. The constant disruptions from lazy unmotivated kids who like to cause trouble isn't fair on the rest of us - they're holding us back from achieving our potential.

I mean I'll probably get ripped to shreds for the last one but so much time was wasted especially since I was in a lower set for maths- I scraped a D at gcse with the help of a tutor. I'm pretty sure I have dyscalcula but got no extra help or support because teachers were too busy dealing with behaviour problems.

To my secondary PE teacher. Thank you for telling me that.. there is a sport out there for everyone and that it doesn't matter if you're rubbish at something, just give it a go. I was appalling at PE but I've always been fit and active as an adult and a lot of that is down to you. Also thanks for making group showers after PE optional!

Really helpful to read this! I'm going back to work today after an extended maternity leave. I feel so sick with nerves, I really hope they all have a good day.

Mrs Clinch - you were not an amazing headmistress as everyone thought you were. You whacked me around the head with a book when I got my words wrong whilst rehearsing for the nativity play; I was 4 you psycho. There was also that time you shouted at me in front of everyone in the dining room for standing up when I should've stayed in my seat. You dragged me by my arm in front of everyone whilst holding cutlery; bitch you cut my arm, I was 5 FFS.

I would thank my English teacher when I was 11 for holding expectations of me when it would have been far easier not to - I was a mediocre student who didn’t cause anyone any trouble, so I was flying under the radar at school. I felt for the first time that someone took an interest and felt it was worth pushing me a bit to see what I could do. I would thank her for writing me letters when our family was away for 6 months and I was in school in a country where I didn’t know the language. Her letters helped so much with my feelings of homesickness and missing out. She got all my classmates to sign my yearbook for me, too. I really felt like I mattered to someone, and that was such a precious experience for me.

"I'm autistic."

God, primary school was awful. Where were all the autistic people in the old days you ask? Well, we were still there, just undiagnosed, being mocked and treated like shit, often by the people meant to look after us.

To my science teacher, thank you for always believing in me.

Thank you to my year 6 teacher who took the time to nurture me and believe in me when I seemed quite unpromising..... it meant the world at the time to a self-conscious little girl, severely lacking in confidence.

Thank you.

To our science teacher - you terrified me and you knew it. I was actually pretty quiet and just wanted to get on but you thought singling me out was a better idea.

To my sixth form tutor - no I’m not a slag and I’ve now got a fantastic career despite no help or guidance from you when I said I didn’t want to go to uni. In fact all sixth form teachers failed the few of us who didn’t go.

I would say to my PE teacher that when you told me to run faster and said no wonder I was putting on weight that shamed me enough to put me off sport for life. It also contributed to a life long eating disorder that I still battle with now. I was very fragile because of things that were happening at home and your words crushed me and echoed in my mind so many times over the years.

For the teacher who looked after me on the day m dad was standing trial. Thank you.

To my secondary music teacher - you should not ever have got into teaching. You were a nasty snobbish prejudiced bully and to vulnerable children in my class.
To Mrs Hall - that moment when you said ‘good interception Heron’ in that netball game was just great. It was ! I still remember it 4 decades later for some mad reason. So proud of that move.
To the deputy head who hit my hands repeatedly and hard with a ruler as a punishment for whatever it was - you knew I was a music scholar at the weekends and was talented. You ‘could have’ done anything else. That harmed me. You knew it. Loathe you.
To all other teachers (imagining a mass group) every single thing you did mattered so thank you !

To DD’s first swimming teacher.
Why on earth are you working with children?

Sorry op asked for one - misread. I’d choose ‘good interception’

To several of my teachers I would say: humiliation is not the way to discipline children and teenagers. I still have a terror of certain situations because of the way we were treated.

To Mrs Peters, my economics teacher: thank you, thank you, thank you. You were one in a million and saw potential in me that no one else did.

My form teacher from Year 10 and 11, I would like to say thank you for being one of the first people to persuade me to trust you, listen, try to understand and gently push me into getting help. I would like her to know how much that meant to me. She probably should have escalated things to the point that my parents were involved, but I was so grateful that she didn't and so began to trust her a tiny bit.

Mrs Shaw from year 5. She picked me to go to a university level maths masterclass for 6 weeks. I would love to tell her just how much that triggered a love for maths and that I have a career that's built around it.

My biology teacher in years 7 through 9. You were kind of a scary guy but you sowed the seed of a love for biology that to this day is still growing. About to commence my second year of my MSc in advanced clinical practice.
Making a trachea out of cling film and then explaining why we have cartilaginous rings will be stuck in my head until my dying day.

To all the teachers at my primary school, thank you for creating a wonderfully kind, supportive, environment where you got the best from every child, and opened our minds, in our tiny village school.

To the teachers at secondary, you could all see I was unhappy, a bright child with terrible attendance and doing very little work, and ostracised and bullied by my peers right in front of you. Why did only one of you acknowledge this, and that was by sarcastically saying 'X, do you HAVE any friends' when you yet again found me plodding, head down, alone along a corridor at lunchtime?

To my PE teachers - I'm not, and have never been, fat because I happen to love exercise I just hated your fucking sadistic lessons. But you were both huge so you had some nerve to say that to me, I dread to think what you said to the poor girls who were overweight.

And I've never been anywhere where I've needed to know the steps to the gay gordons so no I've never been 'humiliated' as the only person who doesn't know it.

To all my teachers (I hated all of you) I would say thank goodness teaching has changed, my children have wonderful caring teachers and they have fun at school. I couldn't send them if it was the same as when I was there.

Mrs Jones, you were a lovely, fun primary teacher and I had my best school year with you. Thank you for being so kind.
My secondary school PE teachers - especially Mrs Morris - the reason I couldn't run around the field 3 times was because I was a neglected child who never had any proper meals at home, so was acutely anaemic and didn't have the strength. Telling me that other people run marathons didn't help.

I'd tell her she was a bully. That she didn't have the right to treat children - or anyone - that way. That I should've stood up to her and I hope she realises the trauma she caused every child who ever graced her classroom.