one note is good enough for me.
so thereâs this girl in my spanish 2 class. weâll call her kayla.
kayla is a sophomore. she is funny and outspoken and a little crazy. the main thing to remember about kayla is that she will stand up for herself when needed. and thatâs why something happened with her and my spanish teacher.
weâll call my teacher miss irving. miss irving has been teaching spanish for 30 years. sheâs a little forceful, hates technology, and hates when people donât just listen to her without questioning it.
it began when kayla entered class late near the beginning of the school year. âsorry, maâam,â she said to miss irving. âi was at the counselorâs.â
miss irving looked up at kayla and asked for a pass. kayla didnât have one, but she said that miss irving would be able to call the counselor and the counselor would verify her visit. miss irving refused to do so and gave her detention on the spot. kayla started trying to justify her own actions, and she received yet another detention.
this marked the beginning of a long, long feud. every time kayla did something, miss irving would reprimand her for it. kayla put on chapstick or began to eat in class and miss irving began to yell. kayla read a paragraph slower than the rest of us and miss irving would snap at her. slowly, kayla began to get fed up.
the last straw for her was when she asked miss irving to go to the counselor during class, and it changed everything.
âmiss irving? i have an appointment with the counselor down the hall. may i go?â
âobviously not,â my teacher snapped back. âyou canât leave in the middle of the class.â
âbut i need to see her, i have an appointme-â
âi donât care. youâre going to translate that paragraph-â
âmaâam, i already translated it-â
âwell, then iâll give you more work to do-â
at that word, all of the heads in the clasroom turned. itâs an unspoken rule that you donât say no to miss irving. but kayla had fire in her voice, and was now standing up and glaring at the teacher.
âexcuse me?â miss irving responded, and kayla went off.
âno matter what i do, you get on to me about it. i have issues that i need to take care of that you refuse to understand. youâre a teacher. youâre supposed to care about us. itâs your job! listen to me carefully: i. have. mental. health. problems. and there are times i need to eat in class or i need to go to the counselorâs office because of it, so could you just get off of my ass about it and try to understand?â
miss irving turned beet red and sent her to the principalâs office.
what followed was a battle between the two. miss irving kept emailing kaylaâs parents, but kaylaâs parents took their daughterâs side. then my teacher emailed kaylaâs other teachers and asked them to take her side, but the other teachers said they didnât ever have problems with kayla.
kayla went to talk to the principal about the situation and told her what was going on. the principal talked to miss irving, and miss irving lost her teacher of the year award for that year. she also received a strike on her teaching record for refusing to respect a studentâs mental health protocol. and kayla won.
miss irving still teaches our class and we still have kayla with us. now, miss irving doesnât hide her hatred for kayla at all. she expresses it fully to her other classes. and most of those other classes hate her as well.
but my class and i love kayla. because kayla has a newfound power, and she doesnât take it for granted. instead, she uses it to help us.
and this matters so much to me because, one day, she helped me.
i have generalized anxiety disorder. one of the methods i can use to calm myself down is by doodling, and doodling also helps me listen more closely to the teacherâs lesson. so i started doodling on the edges of my papers in spanish a lot, especially when we started having tests every class period and it became very anxiety-inducing for me.
miss irving started taking points off for every doodle i made. and i mean A LOT of points. i drew an eye in the corner of a worksheet once and i got an 80 instead of a 100. when i tried to explain that it was for my anxiety, she didnât care. so now i had even more anxiety because i couldnât reduce my anxiety.
one day, miss irving was lecturing and i was doodling, when she started to yell at me for it.
i canât remember a lot about what happened because at that moment i went into a full blown panic attack. but what i do remember is kayla standing up and yelling at her.
âwhat are you doing? stop! sheâs obviously having a panic attack!â
she came over to my desk and led me through breathing exercises. calmed me down. told me my doodle of half a face looked really good, asked me how long iâd been taking art and about my disorder. the entire class was silent, watching, and miss irving was fuming.
when i was calm enough to, i thanked kayla, and she squeezed my hand in a silent alliance.
then miss irving walked back to the whiteboard and never said anything about my doodles again.
the moral of the story? just because a teacher or principal or parent is older than you doesnât mean they deserve to be obeyed no matter what. if what your âeldersâ say to you or do to you belittles you, tears you down, or keeps you from being able to get help or be a better person, they are not doing their job, and you can stand up for yourself and others.
donât be afraid to question the authority just because they say they shouldnât be questioned.
