OUR “HORRIBLE” MATH TEACHER
I am rewinding my inner VHS video tape back to the 1980s, where I stop the tape in in the beginning of September 1985. School was starting and I knew that I would start attending Math class, taught by a certain teacher. She was famous at our school. Infamous really. Most former students at out school told horror stories about her, although that wasn’t everyone. My sister was one of the students that didn’t dislike her, but then again, my sister was an excellent student. The very good students didn’t have too many complaints about her. It was merely all the other students, who feared her greatly and hated her guts as a consequence. Most people have either had one of these teachers or know of one.
Well, Brynhildur was her name, and she was born in the 1920s. She was old school. Old school even then. She had learned mathematics in Germany just after the war and had all the sweetness of a German from Bremen. Many kids used to call in sick to school, to avert going to her class. Countless stories of kids running out of the classroom during class, crying their eyes out. Many kids would dread school just because of her.
Now it was time for little old me, to sit in her class and learn. I walked in her class and the seats had three rows. The desks were set up perfectly, like in a military school. Her desk was on the left end of the classroom by the windows. With her lovely gray hair and glasses from the the 1950s, she talked in a command style voice to the students. The same way dog trainers talk to German Shepard’s. The name calling coincided gently with the homework being reviewed. That was because she set homework every time for everyone, and then reviewed it in the beginning of each class for each student. The students had to line up with their homework and present their homework book to her, and she would say out loud what you did right and announce to the world, what you did wrong. If you made a mistake, everybody knew about it. No one laughed if you did. No one drew attention to themselves. That would have been very foolish.
Now, after she had reviewed everyone’s homework, she would choose the worst homework student to go up to the blackboard and solve a math problem. And she would keep you up there until you finished it. If you couldn’t finish the problem, she would still keep you up there and bark at you: “What!, don’t you get it. What’s the matter with you?!”. Then repeat it few more times. O, what lovely memories. My best friend was scared to death of her.
I however, took a liking to her. I was fine being taken up to the blackboard and made to complete a math problem. I got a 100% score on her tests, for the most part. The best teacher I ever had. I like difficult people like that. I find them and their temper, cute. You see, she may have been “our horrible math teacher”, but she was “my efficient” math teacher. I knew what she was about, under all that harsh attitude. Life is quirky.
