Sister Elaine came to my childhood school when I was going into the 5th grade (age 9 going on ten.) She was a French Canadian nun and still wore the traditional robes, unlike some of the other younger nuns at the school who had uncovered hair and wore blazers and skirts. She was stout and round with a pale, crepey face, thin red brows and cold eyes that seemed to have not only no compassion, but a continous mocking glint. Almost immediately she started to establish a harsh regime in her classroom. Children were being corrupted, she said, by tv. Therefore she was going to make sure they had so much homework that they would not have time to watch any. So, assignments were heaped on every night that had 9 and 10 year olds up till ten PM or later trying to complete the work; some of these assignments were notable for their pointless--like when Elaine demanded that the class rewrite a 24 page story LINE BY LINE in 'our own words.' That was also supposed to have been done in one night, along with a heap of other assignments.
Being a shy child and neither sporty nor particularly slim, I was used to bullying in school...but never from teachers. I had always been punctual, hardworking and polite, and they appreciated that...so I had not truly expected to be 'persona non grata' in Elaine's class, even though I, like everyone else, groaned under the burden of pointless schoolwork loaded on just so that the 'demon tv' could be avoided. However, she took an almost instant dislike to me, evident from that start. As it turned out she deemed I was 'too shy' and she was going to MAKE me 'stand up for myself'...and the way she thought she could do that was by being deliberately insulting and cruel.
So, there was no accolades for any good work done, no praise at all...but that didn't really matter to me.I knew I was a good student and no slouch. When ignoring my schoolwork didn't work, she then stepped up the game and began a course of public humiliation...the worst case of which is described as happening to Esme in QUEST, where she is held up to ridicule in front of a hostile class, all eager to get the evil teacher's attention away from THEM and onto the child that was now the 'scapegoat.' As the class all laughed at me/Esme for the sin of being 'fat', the formerly strict disciplinarion Elaine/Agrippa said not one word to stop them but stood with her hands over her belly, smirking.
Other strange, unsavoury things took place in Elaine's class too. She wasted a whole afternoon making kids in the choir recite their entire songbook--although they only sang several songs from it so had no reason to know all the words. The rest of the class had to sit with their heads on the desk. She also had 'spies'--one, Emil the Squeal, features in QUEST. The spies would look over your shoulder for trivial wrongdoings to report to Elaine...such asthe heinous offense of using the WRONG COLOUR PEN. Public berating or even a detention might follow. Elaine also played around with the library, making a girls' section of dreadful ,dated 50's books about cooking and housewifery and a boys' section with PROPER books ...she charged you a penny a day if you were late returning them, but also like to hand out detentions for 'talking in class' if you tried to hand them in to the appointed 'class librarian.'
By the end of the year she was planning to have competitions between best fiends to 'see who was smarter' and she was outright nasty to a young boy whose father had suddenly died of a heart attack, saying in a snide voice before all that he would get no special treatment. She went around telling the students to MYOB, while encouraging them to be snitches--I don't think she even knew what MYOB meant; she thought she was being trendy.
My mother eventually went to see her for I was in a constant state of stress by now, fearful of coming to school each day. The teacher's attitude towards me had encouraged the class bullies to do whatever they pleased, and her strictness did not extend to reprimanding them. Eaine seemed shocked at first to be brought up over her behaviour. She seemed, briefly, to agree with my mother about leaving me alone...but seemed to think she was doing it 'for my own good.' Howeve,r just as my mum got up to leave the room, Sister Elaine suddenly said, "I am going to teach her to walk properly, though... I've noticed she sometimes walks with a slight limp. It might be a danger to others during fire drill.'
I had had a knee op 4 years previously. My mother turned around and said, "I'm seeing the head teacher NOW...she's never coming back to your class."
And so I escaped to a much happier classroom and a nicer teacher. Esmerelda in QUEST was not so lucky. But back to Elaine...my pal's dad was a dr, and when he tried to speak to her about how she had upset HIS daughter, his professional opinion was that Elaine was suffering some form of mental illness. So...why was she allowed to teach and continued to do so even after the complaints?
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