My heart hurts for six year old you and the pain you felt, I am so sorry that you had to experience that. I am sad for any child that endures such emotional abuse. My children are grown now and have children of their own and I had run ins with a few of these teachers in the past and still see this happening today. It breaks my heart that those we entrust to watch over our children can inflict such pain. We need to be an advocate for our kids and help them navigate through this when it happens, thankfully we also had many great teachers, dedicated to their profession.

Shame was such an integral part of my upbringing. Like spanking it does “work”, in that sometimes you see the immediate result you’re looking for and so teachers and parents alike use it all the time. I’ll be 24 this year and I’m in therapy; not because of my upbringing, depression is genetic, but so many of my sessions have come to grinding halt because I can’t get the hang of being consistently nice to myself.
I shame *myself* now. I tell myself I’m being a bad friend, and stupid, and selfish, and a cry baby. On and on. I do it automatically. This is exactly the reason I tell parents and anyone who is in a position of power over a child (baby sitter, teacher, if the child has the ability to view you as a role model then you matter a great deal) speak to them the way you want them to speak to themselves.

I am so sorry that happened to you. And, yes, sadly, I think something like that happens at some point to every child going to school. I remember one day when I was in second grade, the teacher commented in a not so nice way about the fact that I was always smiling. To this day, I am not sure why that bothered her so much. It never occurred to me that anyone would be bothered by a smile. I don’t think I ever smiled again for no particular reason.

I quite 1st grade on the first day. My teacher held up my work and used it as an example of ‘how not to color’. I’d walked myself to school. I stood up and walked myself home. I didn’t understand I ‘had to be there.’ Fortunately for me, the next day my parents went down, had several serious conversations, and I got a new teacher. Stories like these are unreal, but they happen. I wish they didn’t. Reading Colin Ward’s “The Child in the City” he talks about homeless people in Calcutta teaching kids to read. In many ways, it seems like a better educational system. Certainly a more compassionate one.

I feel your pain. Sadly, I too have countless experiences of being shamed at school. I was a sensitive well behaved child, I deserved none of it, no child does. I even attended a supposedly “good” school, coercing children to behave through shame and punishment is a disease that plagues all of society. It only takes one incident, one bad teacher to impact a child’s self esteem. I believe the way that children are treated in this country is a contributing factor in the violence and mental illness epidemic of adults. Unfortunately, I don’t see it changing anytime soon since shame based parenting (using time-outs, forcing kids to say sorry and such) is the conventional approach. I suppose it’s a step-up from the violence our parent’s generation but it’s still unacceptable. We, as a society, can do better.

When my sister was 6 she started saying she didn’t want to learn anymore and didn’t like school. After a lot of talking it out my mum discovered that the teacher had been holding up my sister’s writing and showing the class and saying ‘Look at this messy horrible scribble. nobody is to hand in work like this.’ She would then hold up a ‘good example’ of writing and openly praise it. It happened at least twice. My mum confronted the teacher and the teacher openly admitted it. The teacher was disciplined as my mum was on the school board but this teacher did not actually believe she was wrong. My sister is 36 and she remembers those two incidents vividly and the shame she felt. She told me it is why she never ever wrote a single word more than was asked of her all through her education even going on to her Masters after her degree. It is disgusting, my kids are the age she was and I could never imagine shaming them that way.

I know some beautiful people they are teachers, I know some people who are so not suited to the care of others, they are damaged and in turn control and damage young minds, many parents, guardians are afraid to challenge this evil, it’s not normal, go with your gut instinct, if you feel it’s wrong speak out, take back your power,

When I was about 8 I had a teacher who hated me. She shamed and humiliated me regularly. I used to fantasise about her house burning down. Im 50 now and it still hurts.

I feel so terrible for 6 year old you and any children that have felt shammed by their teachers. I absolutely loved how you said “Shame is a powerful silencer. Even if we believe our child would tell us, we can’t be sure of that. We have placed someone in a position of authority over them. We have encouraged them to trust them and believe what they say.” I have children and I have always had trouble putting trust in their teachers, for this specific reason. Children see teachers as trusting, loving authority figures and when this vision gets blurred it is hard to come back from it. I will always hope that my children will tell me if anything like this ever happens to them, but you’re right, there is no way for me to know.

So sorry this happened to you. I still remember being unnecessarily humiliated at school. I think it’s transference, people who were shamed and humiliated themselves, passing it on as if it’s normal.

I attended a failing inner city school in the UK. I used to love English literature and I especially loved writing stories as I had a vivid imagination. From years age 11 to 13 I had a lovely teacher who encouraged me, he would tell me how my stories would make his wife tearful when he read them to her. After his lessons I would often run straight to the library after school and collect other books to read for ideas. I used to take words or expressions out of these stories and apply them to my own. my parents never knew English so I had noone to look over my work. My teachers were other authirs. Sadly when I changed class and started higher school I was given I new English teacher. I was eager to impress him too and would spend extra time on weekends and nights writing my essays. The final story I wrote was the best I’d written and I was anticipating a positive response from him. The very next day he kept me behind after class. I was smiling and look forward to hearing his views on my story but I was shocked to find he looked angry instead. He looked at me with a scowl and then looked down at my paper. I could see he had crossed out the majority of my writing. When he looked up he lowered his voice to a harsh growl and quitely insisted I had plagerised the story. He said the expressions used were too advanced for my ability. I remember shaking and turning in on my self. I stuttered and went red and told him I used expressions I read on other books inorder to bring my story alive. He said that was plagerising and I was to never write anything down that was not my own..He then asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I replied that I wanted to be a writer or a doctor. He scoffed at my replied and then told me his daughter attends private school and she will go into these professions and that I should look for something lower, better suited to my type. As an avid reader, I recognised as I stood there that he was the villain in my story. As i walked out of his class, I was 14 years of age I was determined to tell someone. I couldn’t keep this in. He had broken my passion and confidence and was now happily sitting there watching me shrink away. The next day I was still upset. My history teacher asked me what was wrong and I confided in her. She was extremely kind and advised me not to listen to him. She said she believed me and that he was being nasty and that I could be anyone I wanted to be in the future. A week had gone by and the English teacher approached me after class and asked if I’d told anyone about what he had said. I said no and looked down. He stood there hovering over me menacingly and then walked away. I could see his mask had slipped and he was just bullying coward. I never handed in another English story to him, he never asked me to answer questions in class. I deliberately lowered my standards in English and walked away failing English and acing all other subjects. My fear was being accused and bullied again in an empty classroom. I have never forgiven this man who called himself a teacher. Mr. Watson I often wonder how many other children you bullied and how many young life’s you changed for the worse.

I am so sad for 6 year old you, thank you for being so brave and sharing that story with us. Shame is just so powerful 🙁 I really hope my daughter never experiences this and that I am able to find out about it if she does x

Cannot believe public school teachers are never given any childhood education. The great government chooses all the horrific rules they must follow, who have no idea re teaching children. Instead we are to be kept ignorant generation after generation for them to manipulate.
MY BELIEF IS IN MONTESSORI ALL THE WAY WHO USES UTMOST RESPECT TOWARDS CHILDREN, THEIR PHILOSPHY NEVER CHANGES. ALSO NEVER TEACH, INSTEAD TO BE SHOWN.
‘WILL THE “”AUTHENTIC”” MONTESSORI EDUCATION EVER BE APPRECIATED!!’