'Memories of Me Monday' -- on Tuesday

So my BFF has started an interesting Monday blog thread: "Memories of Me Monday." Check out her entry for yesterday here: http://debztalkin.blogspot.com/. I thought it was a cool idea and decided to play along. Except I'll wait until Tuesday to post my memory so I can follow along with whatever fun spark she pulls out of her slips-of-paper-jar. Debbie, I'm so glad you're getting some good use out of that gift! I have a jar of my own too. Maybe someday I'll diverge and pull out my own little paper slips. BUT! As for today ...

Here's this week's memory jogger: "Describe the teacher you hated most in high school. Why was he/she your least favorite?"

Like Debbie, the very first memory that popped into my mind was NOT of high school but of third grade. Great Minds Think Alike, yes? :-) At least ... I think it was 3rd grade. Hah! And another brain cell bites the dust. My mind remembers it as 3rd grade, so I'm going with that. And like my BFF, I'm going to describe that memory instead of high school. To be honest, I can't even think of a single teacher I hated in high school. I really liked H.S. (for the most part).

I went to Franklin Elementary in north Redondo Beach, and I absolutely hated my 3rd grade teacher. My dislike was not because of her teaching skills or anything like that -- it had to do with one impactful incident on one not-so-fine day. And THAT memory has not faded one iota (unfortunately).

You see, there was this boy on the playground who was a little bit of a weird kid, and also a trouble-maker. I don't even remember his name nor how old he was. Hah, for that matter I've blotted out my teacher's name too. All I remember is that she was a slightly built Oriental woman.

One day during Recess (what do they call that nowadays?) the weird kid decided it would be fun to line up all the girls against the playground wall and run down the line giving each one a kiss. Yes really! Silly, huh? I guess in this day & age it might be viewed as perverted. Maybe it was? But we fell for it and a whole bunch of us lined up against the brick wall. I can remember debating about whether I wanted to join in ... a part of me felt really uneasy about it. But in the end I wanted to be part of the crowd bad enough that I squashed my qualms and fell in line near the end.

He didn't get very far before the Recess teacher stopped the whole thing (he didn't reach me, for which I was thankful). Later on when Recess ended and we had to line up in our class lines, they announced that everyone who had participated in that little break-time shenanegan had to go to the Principal's office. We were required to turn ourselves in, queue up in a different line and follow the teacher to the Principal's office for disciplinary action. I was deathly afraid of the Principal so I did not turn myself in and went off to class with the "Not Me" kids.

WELL. Someone ratted on me. But that wasn't the horrible part. The horrible part was that my teacher pulled me aside in the classroom and asked me if I had been a part of the "kiss-a-girl" line. I was so embarrassed, so rattled, and so afraid, I lied straight to her face and said, "No." In fact, she asked me several times and I very stubbornly said "no" each time. I refused to fess up. She got furiously angry with me, grabbed my arm, shook me and yelled at me about how it was much worse to lie, and of course I cried like the scared little kid I was. But I refused to confess and finally she just let me go and sit back down.

She was right: lying was much worse than standing against a wall with a bunch of other silly girls. From the experience I recognized a weakness in me: my fear of embarrassment or retribution or being singled out, etc. can be stronger than my integrity, unfortunately. And it's true that the experience showed me how easy it is for me to go along with the crowd, even when I know it's wrong. Recognizing this weakness has helped me to combat it.

But I have to admit: I have never forgiven that teacher for embarrassing me in front of my peers. Oh dear!