Psychology

I'm a good kid. In this school of restive prisoners, I'm probably the farthest you can get from a rabble-rouser. I was brought up to respect my elders, and my childhood schooling is well-ingrained in my mind. Tell me to write a paper critiquing the school, and I'll end up effusing the glories of the institution that paves the foundations of our lives. I suppose that's the core of it all: I like school, and if there was one subject that could hold my attention longer than Johnny Depp, it was psychology. Learning what I like to learn--now there's a good education.

The new psychology teacher was young and pretty and held so much promise. That, unfortunately, was before she opened her mouth and informed us that we were to color gingerbread men. I endured the first day, I couldn't expect to quench my thirst for knowledge in the first day of school, and, well--I'm an optimist; I scribble hearts in the margins of my notes. The second day, we sat in a circle and shared. The third--

I wondered if I had suddenly swapped classrooms with my seven-year-old cousin.

We eventually opened the textbook. And promptly closed it. She assigned group work and failed to correct inaccuracies in the presentation of the material. She tested us on topics that she could not explain herself.

Some believe that respect should be earned. I'm a bit more of an idealist than that; I'd respect anyone upfront. But the deed that destroyed any remaining deference I had for her was when she sat us down dramatically and asked us for suggestions in response to the general milieu of discontent. We were frank. We were even too polite, perhaps, lacing our critique with "Maybe it's just me...." A less kind classmate state, "I feel as though I haven't learned anything in this class." It was true. She showed us diagrams without explaining them. She told us to read the textbook. She asked us to "teach each other." But she did not teach us. Everything we learned was from the textbook, and we read the textbook outside of class.

The final blow was when she proceeded to explain to us exactly why she could not honor a single idea that she asked for. Then she took that plucky classmate aside and told him, "You can transfer out if you're not learning anything." I felt more shock than anything else; how could a teacher have such a lack of principles as to explicitly tell a student to leave? My doodling was reduced to elongated faces marred with open mouths of silent screams. I was a caged animal, terrified as this witch mocked my conviction of the subject I loved most. The only solution, I thought, was to replace the teacher, but the school would never fire an incompetent teacher because it was too much of a hassle, even if they made an empty-handed show of concern by speaking with her.

I gave up. I thought I could endure it for psychology, but I couldn't stand as she stood there acting like the wounded victim, blaming us for the havoc she created. She did not realize that we were the victims, the flies on her sticky netting, as she took everything we said and spun it into a web of drama. my counselor, understanding the situation, switched me out of the class even as I confessed rather tearfully, "It's not the subject, it's the teacher...."

In retrospect, I can blame neither her nor the school system. In school more than anywhere else, we are taught that anyone can make a difference. it is easy to forget that I am the primary person responsible for my own "good education." Ultimately, I am responsible for most of the blame, for I am the student who won't scale the mountain, who won't take the step forward and try to do anything except escape.