Misread or Misunderstood

In the midst of emotional angst I wrote a blog, My Day to Whine, which was either not read or misread but definitely misunderstood. Which has resulted in my being really annoyed. Annoyed sometimes at me because I must have not said it right.

One of the survivors of the most recent school shooting said she should have the right to feel safe in school. I never felt safe at school. My first grade teacher had a huge cricket bat she used to spank us with. Second grade on Roswell Air Force base began duck and cover. Then the bullies. 

Then high school my art teacher and his mat knife and getting kicked out of class because I screamed and he slammed into my drawing table with knife raised over my head. The school counselor was trying to get me to change my story about the teacher so I could be reinserted into his class.

I cried this all out to my father who knew a member of the board of education and they tried to get me sent to Sandia High instead of Manzano. That was scary because my friends were at Manzano. Not to worry because the principal was not going to allow that and sent me back to art class where the offending teacher called me into his store room, shut the door, and demanded I apologize to him. As he walked toward me I screamed again. Ran out of the storeroom, out of the classroom, out of the school, and became a minor missing child incident for the rest of the day.

For the following two years of high school I refused to ever take art class again. I took, after my study hall imprisonment for misbehavior, creative writing. If my mother had not filled out my applications for college I doubt I would have gone.

I did at last have the guts to go back to an art class in college but I always sat as close to the door as possible, would not enter without another student present and escaped as soon as possible.

So as far as our kids having to right to feel safe in school, since when?