Short Story How Some Teachers Enslave Students - Essay Example

When my grandmother told her father that she wanted to go to school, his reaction was quite adamant. He told her; “No daughter of mine will go to school, your job is to take care of you husband and your children, school is just a waste of time.” So it happened that none of the women in my grandmothers family ever saw a schoolyard or a textbook. Which is why every time she would hear my sisters and I complaining about school, she would immediately say; “Dont waste the hopeful future your parents are giving you. I once dreamed of becoming a teacher, but your great grandfather prevented me from going to school. You are blessed, learn to value the chance you are being given to study.” Each time, her 67 year old eyes would well up with tears that she would try to fight back. She really wanted to be a teacher. It was a dream that she was forced to give up because she was made to do so. Rather than letting her failed dream eat away at her though, she used it to strengthen her conviction about the educational attainment of any daughters she would have in the future. She made a promise that all her children, specially the girls, would attend school. Perhaps she was hoping that at least one of her children would turn out to be a teacher. That dream was actually fulfilled through my mother, who graduated with a degree in Education. As I spent time with my mother one day, she once again recounted the most important story of her mothers life and I told her that my great grandfather did to her was really unfair. In fact, I could not get over the fact that he prevented her from achieving her dream during a time when slavery had already been dismantled and the fight to end racial discrimination was ramping up. So I told my mother, “ You know what mom, even though slavery was abolished in the 19th century I still see modern form of it. ” When she asked me why I thought that way, I explained that all we had to do was look at the case of my grandmother. “ Just look at grandmas story which happened 67 years ago,.” Then adding a more personal note, I told her about the story of my friend whose father had treated her the same way that my grandmothers father treated her. “I have a friend. Her name is Amerah and her father prevented her from attending school in favor of marriage. 60 years later, we still hear about the same issue.” I told mom “Slavery has different faces. It is beyond capturing and trading people, it is controlling people emotionally, intellectually, and physically. It is taking peoples right to freedom and the right to choose.” I will admit that my mother must consider herself lucky to have been raised by a woman who taught her to value the (little) freedom that she has and who allowed her to pursue a college degree. Albeit a far cry from what she was really interested in studying. You see, another reason that my mother could not go to nursing school is that in the country where we hail from, nursing is a mans job that is closed off to women. Even as a female living in the 21st century, I still experience a form of modern enslavement within my life. It happens in various forms and in different places. Even today people try to possess me and take to away my right to liberty and freedom. In fact, my mother may not even realize it but she too was enslaved by her own mother, just as her father did to her before. Why do I say that? Because my mother wanted to attend nursing school and yet she ended up becoming a teacher to please her mother. Despite the fact that I am living in a different time period from my grandma, I still see the unfairness, discrimination, and sexism existing in different places such as school. No matter what laws my country passes and tries to apply towards women, fairness is still non-existent especially with regards to the female gender.. In the past, I have encountered several stories of women who had been traded in as objects, simply because they were female. Stories like Amerahs number in the hundreds. Most of the stories always end the same way, with the women less empowered and going about their lives with a sense of being stupid human beings because of sexual discrimination. In school, the idea of females being of lesser ability than the male gender and enslaving the female students is something that is perpetuated by the educators. The mental, physical, and emotional abuse that female students have to endure at school can be mind boggling at times. Teachers often place the poor female students in situations where they have to be sent home then come back to the school the next day psychologically damaged, scared, and in shock. Situations such as locking up a female student in the school restroom. Such treatment exists even under the existence of the strictest human right abuse laws we have ever seen in the history of man. I told my mom that the story is always the same for more than a thousand women. These teachers, use their power as educators to threaten and abuse their female student. I asked her if she remembered how I would hide my own scars from the time when a math teacher hit me with her ruler and hit me in the back because she was mad that the class was being noisy. She told me that she remembered what happened. “I came next day to talk to the principal who said she ad no idea about what happened. But she will investigate. Eventually, the math teacher came and apologized.” I told mom “ She was furious that I had told on her and to get even with me, she ignored me in class and really gave me hard time. That is until you to transferedr me to another class with different teacher.” Continuing to explain, I said; “You see mom thats what I’m talking about, unfairness has a different form and I think it occurs in our society because there there are no laws that have been created to deter and prevent those kinds of treatments.” When I was in elementary school, I remember asking my teacher a question since I was curious. She didn’t know the answer. So she asked me to shut my mouth and just listen. We were never allowed to ask questions that might challenge our teachers knowledge on a subject matter. The teachers showed no respect for us as people and yet they demanded that we show them the utmost of respect within the classroom, on campus, and even outside of school. Can you imagine a student in class afraid to ask questions because the teacher will make fun of him? I know, it is an unbelievable but true fact for me. I believe that the way that women conduct themselves outside of the home is a direct reflection of their lives and treatment within their own homes. It reflects in their behavior. because how some women being treated at their houses it reflect on their behavior. I started to realize this as I observed the way that the teachers treated their female students in class. In my opinion, unfair treatment is the main reason behind the disciplinary problems of women in school. Truth be told, the school is the only place that a female of studying age in my homeland could vent her anger at the way she was being treated by society. My mom reacted by saying that “Life is not always fair. To which I responded that “People have the right to choose to be unfair to others. Everything we do in life is based upon the choices that we make.” Then I asked her if she remembered my friend Nora. Nora was my friend who was with me at the university. My mom told me that she remembered her, then she wondered what ever happened to her. I told her that; “One day, I saw her carrying maps, markers, and a plastic board. When I asked her if she had a class presentation, she said that the materials were not for class. They belonged to our professor, Dr, Ehsan. He asked her to why she was doing that. She said it was a long story but the short version was that this was the 3rd time that he had her carry his things to class. She never could understand why he treated her that way. We both knew she was not a dumb student. But he just did not like her. So she did whatever she could to get him to like her. She never did succeed in doing that. He simply saw her as far inferior and beneath him and therefore not in a position to be treated with respect.” Then I launched into an even longer story about how I personally had to work hard to incur my own mothers favor in the past. I would do this by buying her morning coffee everyday, just as I did on the very day that we had the conversation. She then told me that she realized that I was trying to win her favor but I had no choice but to do it. “This is exactly what modern slavery is all about mom!” I reasoned out. “You need to get your head out of the sand and realize what is happening in our world.” I added that, “The reaction of the abused to the abuser is what gives them power. In school, students are made to believe that they have no choice but to accept the way that their teachers treat them. If they are not a teachers pet then they are out of luck. It is open season on them for the teachers. Students have no recourse for their complaints. That is why teachers get away with their abusive treatment of their students.” My mother and i sat in silence for a while. The look on her face told me that she was pondering my statements quite seriously. It took another awkward moment before she spoke again. “You are totally right.” she began. “I had a friend in the past whose niece was consistently raped by her teacher. He would do this every time the student wrote a negative comment about the teacher in the student activity book. He took advantage of the situation by sexually harassing the student, knowing that he had an advantage in the situation. Nobody would believe the student so he could do whatever he wanted.” Teachers exploit their students because they are not given any sort of protection against abusive educators. Students are not allowed to defend themselves or complain about the savage and often selfish acts of the teachers. The voices of abused students fall upon deaf ears. Who is to blame for the situation? The teachers? Students? Parents? Or is it society in general? I let my mother know that I was truly annoyed by the way that religion is also often used as a vehicle to hide abuse. The religious often disown the despicable acts of the clergymen who use the protection of their cloak to abuse children, women, and the elderly alike. My right of passage as a student opened my eyes to the results of the unfair treatment students receive in school. All because we did not understand or know that we had rights just because we were human beings, regardless of our gender. Teachers also did not know the limitations of their power because they were made to understand that there were no limits placed upon them. My mother looked at me and sighed. “Don’t be cynical... Don’t tell me you never had good teachers, or you never came across a good collage workplace while you were teaching. ” Exasperated, I said “Yes mom, I did come across some good things while I was teaching But still the fact remains that majority of teachers are unprofessional and really have no idea about teaching.” I could tell that I finally got her attention and that she was getting into our the seriousness of our conversation. I continued, “ In fact teachers should be mandated to take courses in personality development and physiological improvement to be able to deal with their students correctly.” I said, “The problem that they don’t see themselves doing unethical things because there is always a student based justification for their behavior. ” I told my mom that she reminded me of my teaching experience. It was an amazing adventure for me. I enjoyed it because I grew my knowledge about teaching. Even as a child I was already passionate about teaching. I considered teaching an art form. I remember that as a child, I would set up a classroom at home during playtime with the neighbors kids. I would form small classes in my home each evening for my neighbor’s children to teach them the English alphabet and some simple words that I learned from my school. I think I was born to be a teacher. I found my happiness in teaching people new information and enriching their perspective. My parents are one of the real reasons why I love teaching. My mother is a teacher and I was blessed to have both hers and my fathers support and motivation to succeed in my chosen profession. They instilled me with their own positive values and principles that helped to mold me into the person that I am today. I learned English because I believe in the importance of learning a foreign language. Indeed, it opened a new world to me besides that of my family. I remember my first day in ‘The Fourth intermediate school’ class as an English teacher in 2010.I was assigned to a public city school. It was a huge school with three-school complexes under the same management. ,Elementary, intermediate and high school were all together under one roof. For me, this was the first time I saw a school complex like that. Where I came from, we had different buildings for each level. My old school was never seen some thing like the school I was now teaching at. The school was somewhat clean, classrooms were quite big, and there were around 40 chairs inside each class. The school building consisted of three levels. What drew my attention when I used the the bathroom was that there was no mirror. I was surprised and wondered as to why the school authorities would remove such an object. In addition, there was just one class with technology courses; one classroom had the projector, internet, and computers. Most of the student were from middle to poor class families. From my observation, the students were very wild. So I had so much difficulty in trying to connect with them at the start of our class. My first impression was of being in a jungle. oh my God! It was my opinion that they only respected Ms. Maha, a middle aged teacher at the school. Ms Maha was so serious, restricted and loud. Whenever she get left her office, the students would start running to their classes. Ms. Maha always caught a trouble maker no matter how fast the student would run. Her strategy was to call them in her office to give them a lecture and then depending on the student , she would apply a discipline punishment with a degree of severity ranging from spanking the hand with a plastic ruler or just calling the mother to notify her that her daughter misbehaved.. I never forget my first day in this school. One day I saw Ms, Maha call a student who was supposed to be in her class but she instead, was chatting with other students in the hallway. W when the student heard her name, she almost had a heart attack. She turned read and was and paralyzed in her place. I looked at her and thought “You know your principal, why didnt you just do as you were expected rather than risk getting caught? “ My first meeting with my supervisor was a pleasant experience. She gave me valuable advice about how to handle my classes, discussed my class condition, asked about my problems in teaching, and advised me about which students to watch out for. She also taught me how to deal with a student who had a learning disability named Muna. I was told that Muna was so shy and had difficulties with the learning process, so I considered her needs. On my first teaching day, I asked the class to write their names on paper so I recognize them. I told them who I was and a very short story about how I was very shy but then I start reading outside the class and building my knowledge which give me little bite confidence. I also asked wise older people for advice or help, and I started to believe in myself. After this short story I asked them about their names and what they were willing to share with me. Then I started the lesson. My teaching style was to divide the lessons between students. I expected them to be prepped and ready the next day. I had them work in groups to make it easier for them to explain their portion to the class. Each one of them explained a portion of the lesson to the class. To help them, I assigned 30 minutes of my lunch time to assess any student that might need help. My target was to help them so they don’t feel embarassed. At the beginning Muna refused to participate. She just smiled and listened to her classmates. I gave her time to understand the process on her own and I tried never to ask her direct questions. But I always paid attention to her by making direct eye contact. One day Mona came to my office after the class. She asked me about a point in class and I asked her what she understood. She told me her point and she was right. I told her; “Ok. So tomorrow you will explain it to the class. You can do it.” This was the first step in Mona coming out of her shell. ow I knew that she understood but was too shy to participate because she had no confidence .Later on she started participating in class and engaging her classmates as best as she could. I always tell my students that we are here to learn from each other and to learn from our mistakes. I was so proud of Mona. I believe that we in Saudi Arabia are in a period of change when it comes to female education. 5 years from now, I believe that Saudi women and girls will gain their rights because nobody can stop change. Females will get their right back fairly. Programs like the King Abudulah scholarship really helped people to become more open minded and see the world differently. King Abdullah himself declared that women rights will improve. I strongly believe so, I think there are positive moves that indicate that women in Saudi are on the to receiving those rights. For example, 20 percent of women as members in high council is strong step toward. Women no longer need their husbands or custodian’s permission to work. Education in Saudi now improving, the number of girls attending school is increasing iSaudi women compose 57 percent of university graduates. Still the literacy rate for Saudi is 81 percent even though King Abdullah spends a lot of money on making education free and available to everyone. From my personal experience, studying in the USA makes me I feel optimistic because I believe that my scholarship will play an important role in closing the gender gap while helping to push the gender reform agenda and restrictive culture of Saudi. About me: .My name is Areej Sengaly, I grew up in Jubail industrial city, located in east Saudi Arabia. I graduated from Umm-Al-Qurra University in Sudi. Upon my graduation I worked as a intermediate school teacher for almost one year. I enjoyed the challenges and learning experience that my work experience provided. I was faced with seemingly insurmountable odds based upon my gender and, even though it was difficult at first, I managed to earn the respect of my peers and students alike. The work situation I found myself in forced me to become creative by having to devise ways and means to gain my students attention and respect which in turn, resulted in my co-teachers seeing me in a new light. As a teacher who was successful in controlling her students using kindness and understanding which in turn, led to a higher learning result for my students. Having grown up in Saudi, I know far too well how women are kept in the shadows. Life can be severely challenging for a typical Saudi woman whose rights are restricted not only by her family, but also the government. Traditionally, a woman is expected to merely keep house, not hold a job. But eventually, the needs of the times changed and the women were allowed into limited work places such as schools and hospitals. So a Saudi woman used to have only three choices in life. Become a housewife (by default), a teacher (by choice), or a nurse (by choice). I chose to become a teacher. I will say that I consider myself a successful teacher because my students and I have a circle of trust and a bond of confidence in one another that allows the road of respect and communication to be open on both sides. However, I have come to the realization that in order to help my student even further, and in order to advance the cause of women in Saudi, I need to leave the world that I know in order to venture into a world of the unknown. Being able to communicate in English will help me to improve my employment chances in Saudi. In a country where womens rights are still restricted to a certain degree, it is of the utmost importance that a woman finds her voice. By gaining a better grasp of the English language, I will become a highly valued educator in my country and also become a role model for future teachers who wish to pursue higher education in support of their current employment. Read More