Sophomore year of high-school I had a teacher that well... didn't much like me. She felt that her position as a teacher made her better than the average person, and I did everything I could to impress on her that that wasn't the case. I never actually broke the rules. I was far more subtle in my approach. I hadn't thought about any of this in years, but it is on my mind because I ran into her. Was shocking to find out she was still alive. She was very near retirement age when I had the misfortune of her class.
I was at a store looking for a good bargain. While looking I heard a very old sounding voice saying "Is that you?". Turning around I saw a very old women, hunched from age, I had no idea who this was. "Um.. who are you?" was all I could respond. There was some back and forth, that lead to her being offended that I didn't remember someone I had driven to retire. She said through look of rage that "I loved teaching, and intended to keep teaching after reaching retirement age, but after you, I only taught for one more year. You made me hate every second in the classroom." She went on more, but that was the important bit. She had clearly spent a lot of time focusing on me as the source of all of her problems, wonder how much was true, and how much was just in her head. Shame I don't have a recording of it.
Once she was done, I had only one response. "Then it would seem I did a favor for all the students you didn't have a chance to teach". She was fighting back tears. It had meant so much to her to tell me off, and it meant nothing to me.
I never did anything to her that was actually mean. All I ever did was treat her as a equal. I think to her the idea that a student would not see her as better was offensive. Maybe she was just from an earlier time, or maybe she hadn't been taken down a peg in years. I will admit, I am a little happy to know I won this one. Took almost two decades find out, but still nice.
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