Was anyone else bullied by their teacher?

[Tellytibby]

I feel like I've become overly obsessed with this. But I guess that's what the trauma of bullying does to people.

When I was in school, I was bullied by my teacher who was head of the department which taught my favourite subject. He was cruel to me, made negative remarks about me to other students, ignored me and when he was alone with me in a private lesson told me to my face that I was useless and would amount to nothing.

He made my life hell.

I can't get my head round it because I was a good kid. Yeah I got a couple of detentions and daydreamer quite a lot but that's it. I didn't misbehave. Was kind. Had lots of friends. Was never a nuisance. I'm not saying that kids who misbehave should be bullied by their teachers. Nobody deserves to be bullied. But it might help make it make sense.

15 years on I still think about it regularly. I fantasise about what I would say if I bumped into him in the street. Being bullied by a child is one thing
Being bullied by your teacher is just a whole other level.

Has anyone else ever come across this before?

Horrible bastard of a drama teacher. He was such a bully, including to his wife who also taught at the drama school. I became so ill with fear of him that my nerves got the best of me and I had to spend a few nights in hospital. I was too embarrassed to admit to anyone that the reason I was shaking and fainting was because of this man.

Looking back, I'm fucking angry at the other adults who knew he was like this and did nothing. I think arty teachers get away with more because people think that it's an artistic temprement or something.

I will always remember cowering on the floor on set of a play, clearly not well, and the teacher standing over me, yelling I'd never make anything of myself, let alone be an actress. (I did both of those things.)

He was later accused of sexual abuse of pupils in his care. He never did that to me, but I do see a connection between that and control/bullying.

Not anywhere near as bad as many PPs’ awful experiences (😨) but was treated badly, in subtle and unsubtle ways, by my class teacher when I was 8/9 and it felt awful and had a negative impact for me and makes me upset and angry even now.

think it also contributed having difficulties with other DC around that age, since some of the things the teacher did and said impacted on what others might think.

After it happened and we all moved schools: it never happened to me again but I witnessed a couple of different teachers treating other DC badly or indeed bullying them.

In retrospect it was an abuse of power. I knew it was wrong but couldn’t put words to it at the time and didn’t tell anyone until my 20s.

i have explicit conversations with my DC about teachers and instructors and how they behave towards DC, in the hope they might speak up about themselves or others should they experience or witness it.

i think a LOT of DC can spot these adults and ‘red flags’ but sadly have little power to avoid them.