Discouraging Words- from teachers.

I was the opposite.
My poor parents.
They'd attend a teacher's conference and my English teacher would fluff them up about my talents. Then they'd hit the Sociology teacher.
"Does Bob have a learning disability?"
The looks on their faces as they arrived home were priceless.

It's not writing related... but

When I graduated from primary to secondary school (or what you call junior high here), I got into a VERY prestigeous school. Most of my classmates played it safe -- they were all going back to the same school. My headmaster, upon learning the news, said very coldly to me, "You? Of all the students, you're the one going to the best school? You're not even in the top 20." The whole class was quiet when she said that.

It really stung.

But guess what, I went... so neh neh neh!

I'd like to jump in and start slamming, but my teachers were mostly excellent. Our English ones were extremely passionate about their subject matter throughout, with lots of attention on both literary criticism and creative writing. The only real downside seemed to be that I ended up reading the same book for three different classes, due to each level teacher being handed it as that year's text, and was ready to hurl it into a campfire by the time I left.

That said, I never managed to work out how to climb a rope in PE. I fully expect to die on the top floor of a burning library, just for the irony vaue.

My English teachers were generally supportive through primary and secondary school. My detour came in my first year of University. Uncertain whether to major in English or Journalism, I took the introductory (hardest) course in each. The English prof was a pompous pedant who brooked no other interpretation of a work than his own. Students who regurgitated his lectures got A's. I got a C- and decided to major in Journalism -- never taking another English or Lit course again.

In general, I have had some fantastic teachers. One of the best was a teacher at junior school when I was about 10. He was a fantastic teacher, a little strict but he got results. However, there was one occasion when he made me feel really silly about my writing.

I loved reading and writing from a very young age and won some writing comps when I was a child. This teacher set us some homework to write a novel and design a cover for it, and then put it together in the style of a real book. Hooray, I thought, a project that I knew I would love doing. I spent hours on my "novel" and its design. Occasionally the teacher would ask whether I was finished yet as almost everyone else had completed the homework. This surprised me as I was usually one of the first to hand my homework in, but I was determined to get my novel right (a story of a girl and her horse, if I remember rightly).

Anyway, I finally handed it in for marking and the teacher promised to display them all on Open Evening. I proudly dragged my mum to the classroom where the novels were displayed, where we were greeted by the teacher who made a joke about my book being "War and Peace", and how he'd had to give it an 'A' for sheer volume.. When my mum explained the joke I was really upset because I had spent so much time writing it and to me he was suggesting it had been an effort to read and mark.

When we looked at all the "novels" I discovered that most of my classmates had written just a few pages and packaged it up as a book. I was really angry because he had called the project a "novel" and even as a child I knew a novel should be a story of considerable length. The teacher had never specified a length, so I felt really cheated that I had spent so long writing my novel only to have it joked about, while all the other kids who hadn't written what I considered to be a novel seemed to avoid any criticism.

My mum had to do a lot of consoling that night and reassured me that the teacher was only joking and that I deserved the mark I received because I had written a really good story. Plus, I was right to think that when he said a novel he meant a real novel. Bless her, my mum always was and still is super proud of everything I do.

Incase you are wondering, I wrote about 70 pages (handwritten, A5 size). It was probably dreadful and a real effort for the teacher to read, but serves him right for not specifying a length. Most of the other "novels" were 4 x A5 pages. Hmmmph! Novel my a**e!

L x

Sort of related

My mum, like many mums, has kept a lot of things we did as children, especially my writing. One of the earliest pieces of writing she has (and which she showed me at Christmas) was a letter I wrote to her and illustrated with love hearts. It went something like this:

"Dear Mummy,

I love you very much. You are a really good mum except when you shout.

Please don't shout anymore. Give it a rest.

And please can we have more roast potatoes for dinner?

Love,

Lisa"

My mum found this recently and said that until she found it she had always considered herself a fairly good, calm mother. Now she is having to revise her opinion of herself.

She also thought it was funny because it reflects my personality perfectly - hate confrontation, love my food (especially mum's roast potatoes).

L x

The Eighth Grade Book

In my small and progressive private school, which went up to eighth grade, each year we had special projects. But the most special of all was the eighth grade book, which you literally made the year you graduated.

Each student picked a topic, researched and wrote about a 30 page paper as the English project, made the actual paper from pulp as a workshop project, calligraphied, illustrated and bound the book as an art project and then gave a brief talk on it to the whole school at the end of the year.

I had been writing short stories and poems to good reviews from the second grade, including an entire mystery series by installments that I read out weekly in fourth grade English class.

I went by myself (my parents didn't know of this plan) to our very imposing Head and asked for permission to write a novel as my Eighth Grade Book. I explained that I knew it had to have a research aspect, so I proposed to write a historical novel, about a little girl and her cat, living in France at the time of the Napoleonic wars who became pen pals with another little girl and her cat living in London. I had an outline of the story to show her, complete with a research bibliography, and I said that I also had a fallback - if I couldn't get the story done, I would make it a history book about the Battle of Waterloo.

The hideous woman looked at me as if I were a performing monkey and said, very condescendingly, "Oh no, my dear, that's MUCH too ambitious a project for a little girl like you." She refused to read my outline, refused to approve the Battle of Waterloo as a topic ("not suitable for a little girl") and, when I continued to argue my topic, informed me that SHE would select my topic and that I was to do my Eighth Grade Book on "The Fashions of the Twentieth Century." Which I very painfully did. My opening sentence was "From twenty-three skiddo to yeah, yeah, yeah, the fashions of the twentieth century were wild and exciting."

And I never wrote another piece of fiction for nearly twenty-five years. I still look back on that episode with awe at the brave and creative little girl I was and with baffled rage at that incredibly insensitive and sexist response. The damage bad teachers can do is incalculable.

"Most of the other "novels" were 4 x A5 pages. Hmmmph! Novel my a**e!"

Oooh, I don't know. I can think of many, many books that I'd have loved to have stopped at the four page mark. A particularly ghastly one I reviewed for SFX a few months ago sprung to mind - every single line of dialogue stabbing red-hot needles of pure apathy into my eyes until I started praying for the author to be retroactively struck down by lightning in front of her keyboard.

"I still look back on that episode with awe at the brave and creative little girl I was and with baffled rage at that incredibly insensitive and sexist response. The damage bad teachers can do is incalculable."

If it makes you feel any better, it's not easy for us guys either. I was never, ever taught how to cook - for some reason, our home economics teacher (now Food Technology) constantly had the girls making cookies while the boys made appalling hand puppets. You can still write despite your experiences, but I risk food poisoning every time I open my oven ;-)

I guess I was lucky. I never had any bad teachers or negative teachers. All were encouraging and fun. I loved school and I was a good student. The only subjects I ever failed were conduct and posture.Beth

Apparently nobody here went to Catholic school, or went to better Catholic schools that I did, but I distinctly remember my teachers looking sideways at me because I didn't want to be a computer scientist or a doctor. I also distinctly remember a teacher calling my parents and telling them I might be on drugs because I just didn't behave the way the other kids did. Ahh, Catholic school, haven of individuality.....

My teachers actually gushed about my writing, but because I had absolutely zero respect for them it meant little. I participated in a summer program for advanced students when I was in 7th grade and came across a writing teacher who I did respect, and when she told me my work was good I believed I could be a writer.

cwfgal said:

I guess I was lucky. I never had any bad teachers or negative teachers. All were encouraging and fun. I loved school and I was a good student. The only subjects I ever failed were conduct and posture.Beth

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I was lucky too. I never had a dicouraging, mean, or bitter teacher. I had one third grade teacher I really hated, but that was more of a clash of personalities--sometimes there are just some people you don't get along with.

In fact, one day, I plan on tracking down the addresses of all my teachers--especially the ones who encouraged me to read and write--and send them a "thank you" letter. For exmaple, in second grade, I never did my reading homework. Ever. Some teachers would assume it was because I couldn't read--though I could since before Kindergarten. I just didn't want to. Mrs. Ruf took me to the library and gave me my first novel (Ramona Quimby: Age 8). She understood that the picture books that amounted to "See Jane Run" were boring and pointless for me. I'm very fortunate that I have many stories like that.

teachers

Teachers up 'till 7th grade, GGGGGGGRRRRRRR!!!!!!!

Teachers 7th through 12th,

Ooh, Lisa's story reminds me of when I was in advanced English as a freshman in high school. We had to do a little booklet about mythology. I carefully composed my little vignettes and used all the artist skills I could to depict each mythological character (although I became the art club later, I was severely depressed at that point of high school and couldn't muster much real skill). Anyway, it looked fairly good and was all original material. I got a D, if I remember. What really made me depressed (even more so than my natural depressive abilities) was when I saw another girl's A. She had traced her characters out of books, and copied most of the material. I went to the teacher and told her I didn't think it was fair, I had put so much effort into it. Her response: I never said you couldn't copy anything.



Wow - any respect I had for her disappeared.

My other teachers were much better and encouraged me to write more - even original - stuff.

I took a creative writing class in college. Before I signed up, I asked the professor if we would have to write poetry. I cannot write poetry. He assured me that you would have a choice between fiction and poetry. So I signed up. Imagine my surprise when the syllabus included a poetry assignment. My poem went something like this...

Roses are red
Violets are corny
When I look at you
I get h*#ny

Not original mind you. I think I read it on a bathroom stall somewhere. Anyway, I got discouraging words from him as a result of that. Oh well, I was born a smart*#@. I just cant help it sometimes. I still ended up with a B in the course despite my F on the poem assignment. If he hadnt of lied to me, I would not have taken the class in the first place. Oh well, we can't go back and change things. Needless to say, I am still pi##ed about it.

Sorry, I used a couple of bad words, didn't I. Just having an all around bad day I guess.

Brady H.

I remember writing an essay on gemstones in fifth or sixth grade and the teacher's comment was "tell in your own words". Which I had, but I guess she didn't believe a kid my age could write coherently.

I too took a creative writing course in college, and the professor (a Hemingway wannabe) told me that if I ever wanted to be taken seriously as a novelist, I'd have to forget about the genre stuff. I'd love to say I gave him the finger and went my merry way, but for various reasons that class was a huge blow to my self-confidence and I didn't write another word of fiction for several years.

That class was horrible. Horrible, horrible. And though all of us were presumably writing with the goal of publication, I can't remember that a word was ever spoken about the business of writing. It was like we weren't supposed to pay attention to such low-class stuff as contracts and advances. Of course this wasn't an area that Mr. Hemingway-wannabe was very expert in.

Can you tell I'm still bitter?

- Victoria

Teachers

Does an insult you thought was a compliment count? Generally, all my English teachers and writing teachers said only nice things, but I did have a jr. high English teacher once tell me that if I wasn't careful I'd "grow up to be another Edgar Rice Burroughs." It was a long time later when I realized that was meant as an insult. Getting a C on that paper should have been a clue, but it wasn't.

Then there was the ag teacher who told me I'd be nothing but a ditch digger when I grew up. But I knew that was a compliment. I loved digging ditches. Still do. What guy doesn't like using heavy machinery?

I avoided all insults from teachers in high school by the simple method of not going to high school. It's very effective.

College was better. I took every English class and literature class and writing class to be had, and it was an absolute ball.

The only problem I had in college was with one prof at an after hours, informal class. He started talking about first person novels wherein the narrator wasn't the protagonist.

"Do you mean," asks I, "stories such as the Sherlock Holmes tales where Dr. Watson is the narrator, but Holmes is the protagonist?"

In a truly snotty tone he said, "I wouldn't know. I've never read anything by Doyle, and I never will."

Yeah, well, color me out of there. It was a non-credit class, anyway, and I had better things to do.

My problem wasn't so much with the teachers as it was with my parents.

I come from a very small town. I had the same teacher for English lit/comp (yep, they were combined) for 10th, 11th and 12th grades (my entire high school career). In WV, they have (or used to have) a competition called the Golden Horseshoe. Students from the entire state compete in academics through writing stories, doing research, taking massive tests, etc. In my 11th grade year, I decided I would compete.

My English teacher told me I should write something completely new and send it out to the Golden Horseshoe. She'd been reviwing my writing for about a year and a half at this point, and knew that I knew what I was doing. When I told my mom what Ms. Godby had suggested, she said, "Well, that's ok, I suppose, but maybe you should take a test or something too. Why not geography? You're good at that."

So...I wrote my piece for the Golden Horseshoe. And, I took the "fill in the map of the world" test where you have to name the countries of the world and their capitals by filling in blank maps. I didn't place at all in the map thing. I took a fourth honorable mention (pretty good, out of fifty-five counties with multiple entries for each county) for my story. Mom said, "it's a real shame about that test, isn't it?" Not a word about the story.

She's still like this. I think I've said in another thread that the book's been done for more than a year now and she has no desire to read even a part of it. My English teacher from high school was the first person to read it; she even served as an editor for me.

WVWG

In my Sr. year of High School my Creative Writing teacher thought one of my stories was excellent and asked if he could submit it to the school's annual "Literary Journal." I allowed him to do so. (I should note that it was a story I had done as an assignment and that I had only typed one copy.)

The same teacher said that when he got the original back I should think about submitting it somewhere, it might be a story a magazine would be interested in. I was really excited about getting my story back and doing just that.

Several weeks later the journal comes out. My story isn't in it. This was very unusual because everything else that was submitted *did* get printed. I go to my teacher and he goes to the other teacher. Apparently that particular teacher didn't like me and simply threw the story away. Not return it with a 'sorry, not accepted' but tossed it in the trash.

I was pretty upset but fortunately I realized she was an aberration of a teacher (who didn't get tenure, either) and my English professors in college were much more supportive and I didn't give up writing all together.

Biggest lesson learned? Make Multiple Copies Of EVERYTHING

My middle school biology teacher went out of his way to explain to the class that I was the perfect example of how "not too succeed." He reminded me at least weekly about how inept I was about "The Classification of Plants and Animals."

Forty years later, here I am writing a book about paleontology, one of the most difficult combinations of several core sciences to be found. I have a sub-chapter entitled, "The Classification of Plants and Animals."

Eat it, Mr. Goldman.

Tri

Apparently that particular teacher didn't like me and simply threw the story away. Not return it with a 'sorry, not accepted' but tossed it in the trash.

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I had a similar experience in German class. The assignment was to write a brief summary (in German) of a TV programme we had watched recently. I chose to write a summary of 'Oranges are not the only fruit' (an adaptation of the Jeanette Winterson's book, which is about a young girl dealing with her sexuality within a very religious ubringing), because it had made a very strong impression on me. After about a month, I had still not received the marked assignment, so I asked the teacher whether he had marked it yet. He responded that it was so so disgusting he had thrown it in the bin. There were no descriptions of sexual acts in the summary - it would appear that the only thing that was 'wrong' was that lesbianism was mentioned. Go figure.

My mother wrote a very strongly worded letter of complaint to the head of the sixth form, the day after which I got my assignment back (along with a bunch of others I'd been waiting for - and the others also got assignments back that they'd been waiting for), so he obviously hadn't thrown it away. What an odd excuse for the fact that he obviously just hadn't had time (or made the time) to mark our work.

I've actually had pretty suportive teachers for writing. Paticuarily my fourth grade teacher who selected me to go to a writing workshop.

It was the system that was more discouraging than anything. I believe that they try thier hardest to discourage writing. When we get introduced to essay writing the thing they stress the most is "use transition words inbetween every sentance" And me going "it sounds like **** when I do that!"
Plus the first couple grades we were always told "there are other words than said"
Plus they spent a lot time teaching the spelling of obscure words, and it made me feel inept, because I did, and still do have difficulty spelling many simple words. They are understandable, and the spell check always catches them, but it drove me nuts.

I was encouraged by my teachers. Guess I was lucky. In fact, the only high school teacher's name I can remember was the English teacher. This thread inspired me to find his email address and write him a note of thanks.