The Scariest Teacher
One of the most feared teachers at our Primary School was Mrs Phillips. She was an old school teacher who did not stand for any nonsense.
“How dare you?” she would bellow in a stentorian voice when anything displeased her. Every kid dreaded being in her class. One of our cousins was unlucky enough to get her two years in a row.
Mrs Phillips pet subject was handwriting and if she was acting as a relief teacher for another class it was a fair bet that she would make the class practice their cursive writing. We had a handbook showing how each letter should look and if your loops were not the same size or your “t’s” were not crossed or “I’s” dotted you would feel her wrath. I did not have neat handwriting so I dreaded her appearance in my classroom.
The other problem with Mrs Phillips was that she did not like interruptions. If you were so bold as to put your hand up to ask her something after she had told you to get on with your work you would wind up regretting it.
Naomi fell foul of her in this way when she raised her hand in class to ask if she could leave her desk to sharpen her pencil. The woman would not even let her ask the question and the result was a piece of very messy handwriting which made her furious.
I don’t know how old Mrs Phillips was but I imagine she might have been around the age that I am now. Perhaps when she was at home with her family she was different but to me it seemed that she must hate children and the kids in our school were not unusually badly behaved.
Our Other Blog: Two Sisters and Two Points of View 
She sounds like the kind of teacher my grandma would have been. Whether brought up in the same manner or if sad life experiences made them rather bitter,some people sour rather than mellow as they age.
Thanks for sharing your memory for our prompt.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We had another lady teacher at that school was was also pretty fearsome. Their husbands were also teachers but both of them were very nice and not scary at all.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I also had Mrs Seymour as my teacher in grade three. She was the nastiest teacher ever. She made me stand on a chair and say my tables. I didn’t know them very well so she hit me with a ruler every time I got one wrong. I had to go back to the beginning and start over. I got more and more hits with the ruler on the back of my legs. I didn’t cry but I was really upset and scared.She had to let me go back to my desk in the end as I truly did not know the work. She was always screaming and yelling at us poorer students so it was a very difficult environment to learn anything in. Thank God she left after two terms. How I hated that woman.
LikeLike
She should never have become a teacher.
LikeLike