honest_obituaries ovenbird The recent obituary of my fifth grade teacher says that she was known for her “warmth and encouragement and the signature director’s chair in her classroom.” I certainly remember the director’s chair, but not anything approaching warmth or encouragement. Mostly what I recall is the way she seemed to hate children and how she set me up for social failure at the elementary school I had just moved to in January of 1994. The director’s chair ensured that she could look down on all of us–it elevated her well above the hunch of our nervous pre-teen bodies. She always had a coffee perched on the arm of the chair. One morning she spilled it from her throne and made one of my classmates clean it up. I watched him walk to the back of the room to get paper towels from the sink and mop up the quickly spreading puddle, kneeling at her feet to do so. In June, when the days were getting unbearably hot and our classroom temperature soared, she threatened to close all the windows and bake us like cookies if we didn’t settle down. She also ensured that I would be brutally bullied for the rest of my elementary school career. The problem was that she liked me. I was precocious and studious and terrified of breaking rules. I was not the sort of child to half-ass anything. I put focused effort into everything from art to math. This was mostly, in hindsight, due to a paralyzing fear of failure that I still carry to this day. This particular teacher had a tendency to hold me up as an example of what other students should aspire to. She would pass around my artwork and insist that theirs should look like mine. She had me teach my peers long division because she couldn’t be bothered to do it herself. She publicly praised my assignments and sent me down to the office to get treats from the principal who would send me back to class with handfuls of candy. None of this endeared me to my fellow classmates and a few months into my new school experience, I wanted to die. I faked migraines and stomach aches so I wouldn’t have to go to school. All the other kids hated me. Her obituary really should have read: Known for her cruel and domineering teaching style, Ms. L singlehandedly destroyed the social lives of her students and demonstrated no awareness whatsoever of how her actions were affecting the youth she was entrusted with. For some students, the traumatic memories are fresh, even thirty years later. She leaves behind a legacy of crushed spirits, self doubt and a lifelong echo of extreme loneliness. 251211 what's it to you? who go blather from