Ms. Ohneato was a bit weird and strict. On Fridays she demanded we play chess with a partner while listening to classical music because this excercise stimulated the mind. My oppinion she just wanted one less day of lesson planning. Which no student in their right mind is going to complain about in high school. We were always reading some kind of novel and doing questions to go with. It shouldn't come as a surprise that my grades slipped. I had so much going on personally that keeping up the good grades wasn't possible. I could barely remember anything I read if I mangaed to read something. My hands were so shaky that a lot of her crafty assignments were extremely difficult.
Ms. Ohneato didn't seem to care that I was having problems for medical reasons. She didn't show sympathy. One day when I was handing in my homework to her at her desk she asked me to leave the class because this was an honors course and my grade had slipped below a B. Now I can understand but she could have been polite about the matter and pulled me aside after class. She was frustrated to find out I was already taking another English class that met the requirement and she couldn't remove me. As long as I was taking that contemporary class I could stay in the honors class and work to get my grade up.
After the talk though any sympathy she once had disappeared. She assigned a oragami assignment. Now for those who don't know. Before my eplipsey and medication issues I was obessessed with oragami. In fact I was getting really good at it. I was able to make over thirty different things at one point, but I've since forgotten these things and refuse to pay over twenty dollars for paper to get back into my hobby. At first I figured no problem. I can do this as long as I can take my time and have my best friend who sat next to me read me the instructions I'll do fine. During the time my class was it was nearly impossible for me to read.
To my dismay the teacher announced that we only had twenty minutes, had to remain silent, and no one could help each other. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't read the paper she had handed out. I knew what we were making from the example she had. My only relief was that the instructions had insturctional pictures that went with them. I tried my best to decipher the folding instructions from the pictures, but the page was so blurry and spinning before my eyes I had no idea what to do. So I kept stealing glances at my neighbors to figure out what to do.
Ms. Ohneato was watching me the whole time. A smirk across her face. When the twenty minutes was up she walked right up to me and pointed at my right hand. "This is your right. That's your left. It's obvious you can't tell the difference. You can take the project home."
The teacher then sat back down in her seat and didn't seem to care at all that a good portion of the class was laughing at me. She didn't seem to care that she had just humiliated me for no good reason and with baseless accusations. I sincerely think this is one of the experiences that has caused me to place such large distrust in teachers. While I remember my good teachers always. The ones who actually cared and took time to explain things to me knowing that I was going through something. Some even took the time to ask what the situation was. It's teachers like Ms. Ohneato that give teachers a bad name and are one reason among many that my high school will always be remembered as the halls of hell.
