A Least Favorite Teacher

For my mom, whom I love very much.

            The worst teacher I ever had was my own mother. Not in the life sense, but in her actually being my teacher. I was in third grade when my mom began to substitute teach at my school, and I thought myself lucky the day she told me she was to substitute for my teacher, Ms. Griffin.

            Sitting in my silver-gray desk and facing the white board, I awaited her arrival patiently, looking forward to what would be a glorious day of fun. When she walked in, I was certain that my friends would think me the coolest guy in the room after today. Snack-time came, and my mom in some way said something that embarrassed me (what she said was unimportant in comparison to the feelings I experienced, and I seemed to have forgotten her words as my emotions boiled). I attempted to get back at her by telling the class of how she was always late to school because she had to pick her toenails everyday before school, messing around and taking her sweet-old time. Grandparents truly are a wealth of knowledge, in case you were wondering.

            She nodded along, “Uh-huh. Alden, flip a card.” She could do that? I looked at her appalled at the fact that she would make me, her own son, flip a card. This was the epitome of degradation, and I would most definitely not stand for it.

            “No,” I said, folding my arms over my chest and shaking my head. How could she refute that? The class was on my side. They had, after all, laughed at my story.

            In a classic The Breakfast Club style conversation, she asked me if I wanted to flip 2 cards to which my response, of course, was yes. When she asked if I wanted a red card, though, I immediately shut down. Going to the principle’s office was the absolute most embarrassing thing that could happen to a child. I aptly refused and flipped my two cards.

            I sobbed into my arms folded over my desk, yet another action I’d most likely be mocked for. How could my own mother do this to me? Why would she discipline me in front of my friends? There was obviously a code to this sort of thing, and it had been broken on this day.