I am working as a sign language interpreter in a classroom. I’ve been working with one particular student since she was five years old, and it’s been a pleasure to see her growing up and keeping pace with her classmates.

The teacher has just gotten a new aide: a stern, older-looking woman who — and I don’t mean to stereotype — looks like she’s stepped through a timewarp from the 1950s. She immediately takes a dislike to me, and she seems to favor specific students using the Ayn Rand method of education.

After a few days, I notice that [Teacher’s Aide] is standing between me and my student, blocking her view. It’s not a huge classroom, so she must not have noticed. I move aside and restore my line of sight with my student… and then [Teacher’s Aide] moves again.

Me: “Excuse me. You’re blocking my view with [Student].”

Teacher’s Aide: “Yes, I know.”

Me: “So, you’re doing it on purpose?”

Teacher’s Aide: “I’m doing it so that she doesn’t rely on you too much. She can’t be expecting to have interpreters every step of her adult life, so it’s in her interest to learn this now.”

Me: “She won’t be learning anything if she can’t understand what’s being taught!”

The teacher steps over and asks what’s going on.

Me: “[Teacher’s Aide] is purposefully blocking my view with [Student].”

Teacher’s Aide: “I’m not too sure what [Student] is doing here in the first place! She should be with her own kind, learning at an appropriate pace—”

Me: “Her own kind?!“

I admit that I said that way too loud. The children start murmuring.

Teacher: “[Teacher’s Aide], stop blocking [Student]’s view of [My Name]. We will discuss this further after class!”

The rest of the day went by unhindered.

After school, I returned to the classroom to speak to [Teacher]. She told me that [Teacher’s Aide] was a substitute and would not be coming back, based on her outdated opinions not just in [Teacher]’s class but in every class she had “assisted” that day. Good riddance!

Growing up in Texas, I was the only Jewish kid throughout most of my schooling. This story takes place on my very first day of junior high.

I’m listening to the announcements, and so far it’s been mostly standard stuff, until…

Announcements: “…and just as a reminder to everybody, KFC is having its first meeting this Wednesday in [Home Ec room] immediately after last period.”

Naturally, I think this is a Kentucky Fried Chicken club, and I’m very excited about this.

So, come Wednesday afternoon, I head over to the home ec room. The first thing I see is a big ol’ cross hanging on the wall. But, this being Texas, that’s not super unusual. I walk in, turn to my right, and see a big banner hanging on the wall.

Banner: “Welcome back, Kids for Christ!”

Needless to say, I skedaddled out of there posthaste!

I was often bullied throughout elementary school and junior high. I struggled with making good friends until I got into high school.

This happened when I was in Life Science class in seventh grade. Our teacher put us into groups of four or five for a project. [Classmate] was in my group, and he had been bullying me since first grade. We started to work on our project, but every time I opened my mouth to say anything, [Classmate] would cut me off.

Classmate: “Shut up, [My Name], or I’ll punch you in the nuts.”

At this time, I should point out that I’m a cis woman.

It didn’t matter what I said, whether I was trying to contribute to the project or just asking [Classmate] to leave me alone. He just kept talking over me with the same line over and over. Even when I gave up and stopped trying to talk, he’d throw his oh-so-clever “threat” out every so often, just to remind me. Our other groupmates just laughed or looked uncomfortable; either way, they said nothing about it and just kept working on the project.

I looked around to see if the teacher had noticed. [Classmate] wasn’t exactly being quiet, but [Teacher] was at her podium on the far side of the room and evidently hadn’t heard anything.

Finally, fed up, I got up to talk to [Teacher]. I didn’t like being a tattletale, but it was incredibly frustrating to be expected to contribute to a group project and then not allowed to do ANYTHING.

Me: “Ms. [Teacher]? [Classmate] won’t let me talk. Every time I try to speak, he tells me to shut up or he’ll ‘punch me in the nuts’.”

[Teacher] was livid, which seemed promising. I hoped that she would walk over to the table and talk quietly to [Classmate] or maybe just move me to another group. Or both. Both would’ve been great.

But instead, she shouted at him from across the room.

Teacher: “[Classmate]! Did you tell [My Name] to shut up or you’d punch her in the nuts?”

The class fell completely silent as everyone stared at [Classmate], [Teacher], or me. I could feel my face burning with embarrassment; this was absolutely the last thing I wanted.

Classmate: “Yeah.”

Teacher: “First of all, that is incredibly rude. Second, the proper name for them is testes. You should know the proper terminology! Do you understand?”

Classmate: “Yeah.”

Teacher: “All right.”

Silence fell again as [Teacher] glared at [Classmate]. After a few moments, people lost interest and general project-related chatter began to rise in the room again.

Teacher: *To me* “Let me know if he keeps bothering you.”

Me: “Okay…”

And I went back to my chair.

Naturally, the harassment continued. I was still not permitted to speak, but [Classmate] had a new refrain.

Classmate: “Shut up, [My Name], or I’ll punch you in the testes.”

I put up with this for a while, but again, I became terribly frustrated. I really didn’t want [Teacher] to make a big thing out of it again, but my only two choices were to sit there and try to tolerate his garbage or to try [Teacher] again. I figured that at least her last attempt had resulted in SOME kind of change, right? So, I trudged back over to the podium.

Me: “Ms. [Teacher], I’m sorry, but [Classmate] still won’t let me talk. He’s just changed it from ‘nuts’ to ‘testes’ now.”

Teacher: “[Classmate]!”

Oh, boy. Here we go again.

Teacher: “For your information, girls do not have testes. You cannot punch [My Name] in the testes because she is a girl and does not have testes.”

Classmate: “…okay.”

Teacher: “Now, leave her alone and work on the project, please. This project is not about the reproductive system; it’s about [whatever life science topic; I don’t remember now].”

Classmate: “Okay.”

The matter apparently settled to [Teacher]’s satisfaction, I went back to the table once more. And once more, [Classmate] had tweaked his “witty one-liner”.

Classmate: “Shut up, [My Name], or I’ll punch you in the nnnnnnnnnose.”

Ooh, what fun! A little bait-and-switch twist on “nuts”!

While the “threats” continued, [Classmate] did eventually grow bored with it and periodically let me actually contribute to the project. I imagine this was at least partially because I was a pretty good student (intellectually if not in terms of actually doing the work), so “allowing” me to pitch in meant less work for him in the long run.

This wasn’t the first time I’d had a teacher intervene in a totally unhelpful way (or refuse to intervene at all), but this incident was the last straw. I never asked teachers for help with bullies anymore after that.

When I was in my early twenties, I was a lunch lady for a high school district, rotating sporadically between four different schools. One of these was a community day school. For those unfamiliar, these are schools for students who’ve been expelled from the “regular” schools or have behavior or attendance issues.

While they were suspicious and wary around me at first, the kids started to warm up to me. Many of the adults they dealt with treated them like prison inmates; I tried to talk to them like normal teenagers. (For the most part, they were, if a bit rough around the edges.) I also tried to cut them a break when I could, and I rewarded good behavior by giving them extra snacks and the like when I could swing it.

In turn, they respected me (a little). On one notable occasion, a kid was using some pretty vulgar language while lining up for my cart, and his buddy nudged him and said, “Hey, don’t swear in front of the nice lunch lady!” I didn’t mind the swearing, but I was touched by the care.

One day, I was leaving work for the day, and a day school student spotted me unlocking my car — a bright red Ford Mustang that was (at the time) only a few years old.

Student: “Hey, [My Name]! Is that your car?”

Me: “Yep!”

Student: “You drive that?! You shouldn’t drive that! You’re a lunch lady!”

Me: “What do you mean? It’s just… my car.”

In truth, my parents had bought it for me when I turned sixteen and learned to drive. It felt like it might be insensitive to say that, considering how many of these students came from really poor backgrounds; often, the lunch I served them was the only meal they ate that day.

The student came over and circled my car, visually inspecting it. I was suddenly feeling weirdly embarrassed. As silly as it sounds, I always sort of hoped the kids would think I was cool.

Me: “I know, it’s so dirty. My boyfriend’s road is gravel, and the dust…”

Student: “Nawww, it’s okay that it’s dirty! When somebody’s car is clean, you know they don’t do over fifty-five miles an hour.”

And with that, he told me goodbye and walked away.

I think maybe he thought I was cool.

In junior high, I took Texas History as a required class. My teacher wasn’t great by any standards and was a major creep. He was the type to lean way too close to female students under the guise of “helping” with classwork. 

[Teacher] was almost fired that year because numerous female students who sat near his desk saw him watching explicit videos in class. Unfortunately for the students, and fortunately for [Teacher], the school cameras didn’t work, the district didn’t care about the students, and he used incognito mode. There was “no evidence”, so he continued teaching. 

Ten years later, my mother and stepfather split up. My mother changed her relationship status to “single” and immediately started getting messages. She liked to complain about the men messaging her and used last names to differentiate between them when talking to me.

One day, she mentioned a very familiar last name.

Mother: “I keep getting messages from one guy near here. [Last Name].”

Me: “I had a teacher who was a [Last Name]. At [Town] Junior High.”

Mother: *Goes to his profile* “[Teacher’s Full Name]?”

Me: “Sounds right. He taught Texas History.”

Mother: *Looks at his occupation* “Yep, ‘Teacher at [Town] Junior High’.”

Me: *Laughs* “Gross. My old teacher is flirting with you?!”

I told her the story about [Teacher] almost getting fired.

Mother: “So, block him?”

Me: “Block him.”

My old history teacher legitimately tried to hit up my mom on [Social Media].