So I was talking with my sister the other day and somehow the conversation led us to talking about one of my teachers from back in grade school. I only remember one thing about this teacher: she hated my art (well, my little kid version of art).


I remember that back when I was in first grade, my teacher ripped up a drawing I did of an autumn tree. I was really proud of that one, too. She had taken the entire classes work and tore them into pieces saying "These are all terrible. You didn't TRY hard enough. No, no, NO."
Really? I thought they looked pretty decent. I mean, I even put little apples on the branches and put a rake by the leaf pile! I added DETAILS for goodness sake! Most of the kids didn't care, they honestly didn't try....but I had, so I was a little traumatized at that moment.
Little six-year-old me just raised her hand and said, "Can I take home the pieces?" The teacher just shrugged her shoulders and motioned towards the aftermath of her art-hating rampage.I carefully sifted through the mass of destroyed paper and found the pieces that were exclusively to my original artwork. I cried when I got home with my massacred finger-painted masterpiece, but then I discovered the miracle that is clear tape.

The same teacher also made me skip recess for an entire week to fix yet another art project. What was wrong with this one, you ask? It was an underwater painting that didn't have enough of the color blue in it. I've always liked detail, so naturally I had put little seaweed bits, water plants and coral in my painting. She insisted that the ocean was blue, and ONLY blue. There were no other colors besides the primary, boring, standard blue. She made me paint over them.Every single one of them. During recess.
In my mind, that should be an injustice to first graders everywhere.

When the assignment was to draw a flower, just a plain old flower, I decided that it needed a home and gave it a lovely pot to sit in.
She made me cover it up with ugly colored paper so that people wouldn't see the "mistake". I don't see how that's really any different. Apparently ugly splotches of random colored construction paper belonged under my flower more than a flower pot did.

We used to have a program that made us write weekly stories and illustrate them, as well. Whenever I drew something in those blank books, she would either say "What is THAT supposed to be?" or "Draw that simpler."

It was just a constant flow of negative from her.


I always thought teachers were supposed to ENCOURAGE creativity, but all she did was stomp on it, spit on it and pummel it so far into the bowels of hell that I would never again venture to draw...until I hit third grade that is, and my teacher praised me for everything I did

well there we go. I have successfully typed out the unpleasant version of my grade school nostalgia.

Sometimes I remember her ripping up my picture when I finish drawing something that I'm really proud of and I just think to myself "Ha. Look at me a decade later. You can't say I didn't try on this one."