Thinking He Can Ruler Over You

When I was in high school, I lived on my own and money was really tight; I could barely afford food and textbooks for school.

I had a math teacher that seemed to hate all the students. But some, he literally bullied — he called us names, belittled us, refused to explain things that we didn’t understand during his classes, etc.

My ruler broke and I hadn’t had the chance to buy a new one (nor did I have the money for it at the time) and my math teacher kept bugging me about it, even though we didn’t actually need rulers on the course he was teaching, nor was it a requirement to have one. He kept bugging me about it for weeks, and at first I thought I’d be mature about it and just borrow one from a friend, but he kept ridiculing me in front of the class, saying stuff like “If you’re so poor, you don’t deserve to go to school,” and I finally got fed up with it.

So, I visited my mother’s home, and borrowed something from my eight-year-old little sister. The next time my teacher walked up to me and said “So, still no ruler? Still can’t afford one? Why do you even bother to attend my class?” I took out a pink, 3 cm long Barbie-ruler, put it on the table, and smiled at him.

Needless to say, I was kicked out of the classroom. I walked straight to the principal’s office, had a meeting with her, and told her everything. She didn’t reprimand me, but laughed at the pink ruler and invited the teacher to her office.

To my surprise, not only did he not deny anything, he also swore at the principal! Which was great, since I didn’t actually need to prove what he was like, since he outed himself right then and there. During that day, about 20 different students had short meetings with the principal about the teacher and all said the same things: that he was a bully, treated us unfairly, and didn’t teach us properly.

The next day, the principal had a teachers’ meeting and my math teacher was suspended for a month, but before the suspension was over, he voluntarily quit.

So, that’s the story how, thanks to a 3 cm long Barbie ruler, a horrible teacher quit his job.