Life Is So Unfair!

My grandmother, she’s this little woman with kind of curly, silver hair and she used to look after me every day from the time I was an infant until I was nine, when my mother was out to work. Well, she sometimes laughs at me. It can be infuriating, really. It’s not laughing, actually, guess it’s more like teasing. Deliberately, of course. I’m not dumb, I know she’s trying to get me to realize what I’m saying before I do it, and then stop saying it. But it’s hard.

And, as I say, infuriating, depending on when she does it. If I’m with friends, and she does it, it makes me feel pretty annoyed. I don’t bother saying anything to her, what’s the point?
I just kind of laugh along with her. Every time I say something like “it’s not fair”, or - and I know this sounds kind of silly, since I’m in my teens now - “it’s not my fault”, she does it.

Not my fault if those phrases just kind of come tripping out of me. See what I mean? I’m so accustomed to saying them, I don’t even think about it. And knowing that, I see what my grandmother means. The minute one of those phrases has come out of my mouth, she turns to me, and in a loud voice, with a kind of whining inflection that is truly awful, copies me.

“Not my fault”, she deliberately, emphatically repeats with a kind of nasal whine. I swear I don’t sound like that, not really. It’s just her way of drawing my attention to what I’ve said. Thanks a whole bunch, grandma. On the other hand, I know very well she doesn’t mean to make me feel bad, just her way of trying to make me more aware of what I’m saying.

I shouldn’t feel so abruptly defensive about anything. And, as she has always (at least lately, now that I’m older, noticing things more, and remarking about them to her) said to me, life isn’t necessarily fair. It’s just life, you take it as it comes and make the best of it. Still, it’s not, in a sense, respectful of me, I think, when she does that. Maybe I will get around to asking her to stop. If I can’t manage, somehow to stop myself belting out that automatic defense-mechanism. Well, I get her point.

Still, it’s true, and I defy anyone, anyone at all, to prove to me that life is fair. Because it most definitely is not. My grandmother says I’m much too sensitive. She tells me that when I was really young, much younger than I am now, say around second grade, my teacher then told my grandmother that she was impressed at my natural sense of justice. Don’t even ask me how a grade two teacher would arrive at that kind of conclusion of a little kid. My grandmother took it to heart, proudly. Insists that, on the evidence before her, I have been imbued (likely through my genetic inheritance, as she always says), with an enhanced, natural sense of justice.

Maybe that’s why I’m so outraged at my grade eight teacher, for not respecting us kids as thinking human beings. She assumes we’re idiots. Claims we are, anyway. And I’ve never before had a teacher who resorted to hysterics, thinking that will make us behave better. It may be true, and I believe it is, that this class is one of the rudest, rowdiest ones in the school. We’re just incidentally the only grade eight in the school, since the entire school enrolment is only 220. Shrinking year by year.

The first year I came here it was 260. Seems the rural areas of this province are seeing a decline in the elementary school population. That’s why schools are closing all over the place. Even my old school, in the city, where I used to go when we lived close to my grandparents has closed. Well, it wasn’t exactly in the city proper, although it’s considered to be now, through amalgamation. Back then it was considered the suburbs. The suburbs are moving steadily outward.

Anyway (where was I?. I get that kind of thing from my grandmother, going off in a tangent. Too much either on or in my mind, she says). Right, my teacher. She will not listen. She thinks she knows what goes on, and draws erroneous conclusions. Just because I’m the tallest kid in the class, taller even than the guys, she thinks I’m the number-one class troublemaker. Maybe too because I talk a lot, but what can you do when someone is talking to you? I turn around to answer a question or to respond to something someone says beside me or behind me, and whomp! She leaps all over me. When I try to explain she screams.

I should explain, it isn’t only me that gets ripped into, it’s most of the class, with the exception of a few of her favourites. Heaven save us from class favourites, those snivelling little angels who can never do anything wrong. They’re actually the sneakiest, most untrustworthy kids; the snottiest ones too, for that matter. There’s a bunch of us kids, guys I hang around with, that she picks on, mostly. Although she’ll scream at anyone, when she’s irritated. And lately she’s always irritated.

No wonder no one listens to her, why the class just keeps on behaving badly. She’s lost our respect. I’m ready to tell her that to her face. That’s no way to behave, to control a class, to discipline us collectively for something one or two people have done that has outraged her. That we don’t even know anything about. But she won’t listen. She wants respect, but isn’t prepared to extend it to any of us. That’s fair?

Things got so bad that a few weeks back the principal sat in on the class, while our teacher was away on sick leave. No, she wasn’t sick, it was her kid. That’s another thing, she’s there to teach us, right? So why do we have to sit there, bored out of our skulls, listening to her talk about her family situation? Who cares?

Her three-year-old kid seems prone to getting sick. You’d think she’d have someone else she could rely on when the day-care insists they can’t take him back until his fever is gone. She’s got parents, her husband’s parents. She’s tried using them in emergencies, she told us, but she doesn’t trust them. Doesn’t trust her own parents, her husband’s parents to look after their grandchild! What is the matter with the woman? She says they don’t understand her child, don’t know how to look after him properly. Sure.

Maybe I shouldn’t complain about that. After all, when she books off sick, we get fill-ins, replacement teachers. Some of them are okay, mostly they’re pretty clueless. Can’t work with the curriculum. So it’s a wasted day. Wasted with her there, when instead of teaching us, she assigns us really stupid homework, or just stands around talking about her family, about her week-end, about her state of health. She’s only in her late thirties, what happens with people when they get that old-not-old, do their brain cells go suddenly plunk?

Right. Like I was saying, the principal came in one day, and sat with us, to discuss the reputation this class is acquiring, which is how she put it. There’s only 23 kids in the class, not a big one, you’d think our teacher would be capable of putting in the effort she’s getting paid for. My mom says teachers make very good salaries; their union contracts see to it. And she’s been teaching for ten years, has some seniority, so she’s making good bucks. There I go again.

Anyway, the principal kind of prodded us, asking why did we think it was that our teacher was having such problems with the class? Why she kept sending so many of us over to talk with the vice-principal, when she was ‘at the end of her tether’. Why ask us? Well, presumably, she’d already discussed it with our teacher. No one wanted to say much of anything.

She took a different tack; said something general about the situation and asked us to raise our hands if we agreed, sit on them if we didn’t. That told her something, since when she asked if we were comfortable in the class, felt like we were learning, everyone sat on their dumb hands.

Well, said the principal, she was stymied. Didn’t know what to think. Never came across anything like it before. I guess not. She’s new at the school, but our old school records are available to her any time she wants to have a look at them. Mine, for example, will inform her that I’ve been commended many times in the past for my academic achievement, but more, because I’ve been useful to my previous teachers in helping shy students, or misbehaving students feel more included, getting them to thaw out, loosen their attitude, become less hostile.

I even had a thank-you note from some kid’s mother about it, and a certificate that went out in the mail so my mom could see it. Big deal. I actually did nothing extraordinary, nothing at all special, just treated them decently, that’s all.

Which is more, far more, than this teacher has ever done. At the beginning of the year I thought she was pretty cool. Truth is, she did help me in practical ways, like with my math, helped me to see it in a different way, so I was able to understand things better. I don’t know what happened after the first two months, things just disintegrated. And she’s been really horrible ever since.

I don’t enjoy people screaming at me, yelling in my face, accusing me of things I haven’t done. My mom, actually, says it’s partly my fault for judging my teacher. I’ve judged her to be incapable of performing her teacherly duties and as a result I’ve withheld my respect. I’m cool and polite. Evidently she takes umbrage at that. Tough.

The principal’s prodding was going nowhere. I raised my hand and offered my opinion, asked if I could proffer it. She said, go ahead. So I did. I told it like it was. Said we were as entitled to respect as our teacher, and if she couldn’t bother to offer it to us, why expect us to respect her in return? So we’re noisy and don’t pay attention. But, I emphasized, this happens precisely because we’re driven to it by our own exasperation over having to submit to this woman’s tirades, each and every day.

And, I said, this is interfering with our education, diminishing the level of our education, and we’re certainly entitled to more than what we’re experiencing. I wasn’t the least bit scared. I felt I was right, and when you feel that way, you’ve got a responsibility to yourself to proceed.

The principal didn’t scowl, didn’t look condemnatory, just looked at me kind of thoughtfully. That impressed me. She turned to the class and asked who else felt the way I did? Almost everyone lifted their hands. And then there was utter quiet. The principal heaved a huge sigh, got up, said she’d give it some thought, relay what she’d gleaned from us to our teacher. She turned to me before she left and asked if I’d be willing to repeat what I’d said to her, directly to my teacher. Most certainly would, I said.

Since then, nothing. Nothing, nothing at all. No acknowledgement from the office, nor our teacher that anything had taken place out of the ordinary. I felt pretty deflated, I’ll tell you. My mom said to give it a rest, just go with it, and forge ahead. Not to take things so seriously. It’s all right for her, she isn’t assaulted on a daily basis by the accusations of someone who won’t listen to reason.

And then, of course, there’s the little matter of my report card, my latest report card. She gave me marks in the mid- to high-70s. Patently absurd. I’ve earned much better marks than that. This report card punishes me for being outspoken, for being the victim of a personality clash.

Exactly, said my mom, your personality is clashing with that of your teacher. What’s happening in the classroom, she said, is exactly what occurs out in the real world, where people often don’t get along and have to make a concerted effort to do so. She herself, she told me, had to learn the hard way. She thought I would be smart enough to learn quicker than she had.

Obviously, I’m not. And I’m not.

My literature and English marks are absurd; no one reads more than I do, and I’ve got a perfect (well, pretty good) command of the language, and my tests are excellent. How can she interpret that to a slightly-above-average class mark? Ditto for geography, social studies, art and music. My French and math look about where they should be, but the rest is a travesty. She’d give me worse marks, I know, if she could get away with it. But she can’t, because I am a good student. I’m really, really pissed off, big time.

She’s really not very professional at all. My mom’s a professional. She takes pride in the work she does, and she does really complicated, important work. I don’t know all the details, but she can do these really amazing drawings, like architects do. She works on contract for the government. Makes more money that way, she says, than having a permanent job with them, though sometimes she gets really anxious when one contract has expired and she has to go looking for another one.

My teacher should be invited to go look for another job. I know that’s not very nice, but she isn’t very nice, and that’s the absolute truth. My mom says I’m too negative. My grandma says the same thing. What really, truly bugs the hell out of me is that this teacher, who makes everyone miserable around her, has said the same thing to me. She should know, she’s the very epitome of negativity.

And there’s a parent-teacher interview coming up. My mom was supposed to go in to the school on Monday for this interview. Me too, I was supposed to be there. I was looking forward to it, kind of in a twisted way. I know that whatever my teacher says, my mom will support her. Mom thinks I should be more disciplined, less inclined toward criticizing my elders, that I should learn to take advice, and be less judgemental. My grandmother has told me that my mom’s experiences at school paralleled mine; in other words my mom was just as critical of her teachers, as they complain I am with mine.

Listen, I was never exactly in love with any of my teachers. I liked some of them, didn’t care for others, but they weren’t like this person, not at all. I had more respect from my teachers when I attended pre-school, than I get now. And there’s something pretty wrong with that. If someone like my teacher hasn’t the necessary patience and the fortitude to teach a class of 12 and 13-year-olds, she shouldn’t be doing it.

My grandma told me there’s a glut of teachers, most of them can’t find jobs because of declining enrolment, and new graduates are just biding their time, waiting for older teachers to retire, or just making do, taking on temporary fill-in jobs. They’re on a list that the schools use, for emergency calls. And for the most part, when they come in to fill in for a day or two they don’t really do much of anything, other than baby-sit. That’s right, they don’t know where we’re at in the curriculum, and they’re not in a very good mood because they haven’t got permanent employment, and it just seems that they sit there resentful of us, as though we’re the ones who’ve gotten them into that mess.

Anyway, I repeat: life just isn’t fair. Here’s something that really bugs me. Every day after school I’d come home and first thing getting in the door I’d go over to speak with my little pig Henry, stroke his tiny head, and ask how his day was. Fill up his water, just to give him clean water to drink. And a bit of a treat, a piece of celery or apple. I got him at the Humane Society - mom’s big on rescues - when he was only two, they said. I loved him, I really did. He was so cute, made these really sweet little sounds.

Okay, I was kind of scared of him, too. Mom would laugh at me, she is used to handling animals. I should be, I’ve lived among them long enough, but Henry was different. He was so small. Mom would put him in my lap, and I’d brush his hair. And pet him. Sometimes he didn’t want to be handled, and he’d nip my fingers. Hard. I was just kind of leery of picking him up, in case I did something wrong, and hurt him or dropped him or something, even after Mom showed me how. I lacked confidence she said, and I certainly did.

Henry had a little cage when we first got him. But Mom decided he needed stimulation and more room, so she expanded it to two stories, and another area just for him to bounce around. At first he was just still all the time, didn’t move about much. But when he became accustomed to his new expanded cage, he began to explore it all. One level was for sleeping, the other for eating, and the large area on the first level for him to do whatever he wanted. His cage was right next to Mom’s rabbits, so he had plenty of company. They snuffled one another.

Actually he became so bold that Mom would sometimes leave the door to his cage swung wide open and he’d just go out and amble about everywhere. He was good about confining his droppings to a special area in his cage. For the most part, that is. He was a curious little devil, always wanted to know what was going on. The cat just paid him no mind, and Mom’s two dogs got used to him really fast. The smaller one even tried to play with Henry sometimes. I was always worried he’d get hurt, he was so small. He was afraid of nothing.

Along with his regular food, he’d also get a daily salad, fresh fruit and vegetables cut into little pieces. He would actually squeak repeatedly at about the time of day he knew he’d be getting his salad, impatient for his bowl. Made us all laugh. It really was funny seeing him padding around on the kitchen floor, in between the cat and the dogs, everyone politely managing to sidestep the other. Although when the cat started meowing, and the dogs barking, impatient for their meals, with Henry squeaking along, it reminded me of one of those old nursery stories grandma used to read me when I was small, The Musicians of Bremen.

One day I walked into the house, went over to Henry’s cage, and stroked his little head. He slept a lot, always, but that’s normal. I thought he was sleeping. Although I did think, at the time, how strangely his body seemed to be laying there, not the way it usually looked. His body looked stiff, awkward.

I soon realized he wasn’t going to respond to me. I freaked out, I really did. I just ran out of there, and shut myself into my bedroom. Until Mom got home. She sat down with me and we both cried. Then she wrapped him up in a tiny blanket and put him in a freezer bag and into the freezer. It was winter. She planned to bury him in the spring, soon as the ground thawed. He’d only been a year with me, my very own companion pet.

See what I mean?

My grandma says most teens are grumpy and inclined to fuming about things. Hormones, she says. Bullshit, I say. Not to her, of course.