An Honest Letter To The Professor Who Said We Wouldn’t Amount To Anything In Life

Dear Sir/ Ma’am,

I am pretty sure you haven’t realised it yet – or maybe you have and you enjoy it nonetheless – you made my life hell for the three years you taught me. No – you TRIED to make my life hell. But it did not end up being hell because I had emotional support from my friends and moral support from other teachers.

But you tried your best. And at the time I didn’t really understand why you targeted me. Because I didn’t see any reason. My friends said that maybe it was because I didn’t speak the language or maybe I talked to the opposite sex outside the class or maybe as you put it once – I was “too smart”.

I wondered whether these reasons were enough for you to ridicule me in front of the whole class by asking me a question you knew I couldn’t answer. Whether they were reason enough for you to give me low internal marks even though I performed well in them. I wondered how these reasons have warranted you to throw me out of the class just because I talked to my benchmate once. I still don’t know why you tore up my assignment because of a simple mistake in them when you politely corrected the same in your favorite student’s assignment. I wrote the whole assignments spanning hundreds of pages again – overnight.

All these things made me afraid – I am going to admit that. I wasn’t afraid at first. At first, I was rebellious. But when I realised to what extent you could screw up my grades I grew fearful of you. I knew that it would hurt my career in a way. And deep inside I knew you could not be reasoned with. That’s why in my last academic year I conformed to all your whims and fantasies.

I didn’t utter a word in class even though I had a thousand doubts in my head, stayed “not too smart” and double checked my assignments to remove any small error that might be there. I submitted my assignments on time – not because I was disciplined but because of fear.

But I still ended up with screwed up internals in your subject even after – in students’ parlance – “I licked your ass”.

What you wanted came true – I suffered through my years I spent as a student under you. I cried in my bed when all my friends were asleep. My hands ached after writing assignments overnight and most of all – people asked me in interviews why I scored so low in my internal exams?

In some places, I simply did not make the cut.

And as I sit here as an adult working professionally I ponder as to why you acted the way you did. Maybe you had trouble back at home and you released your frustration at us. Maybe back when you were a student you hated classmates who were just like me. Maybe back then they behaved with you badly. Or maybe you don’t like where I came from. Or simply because you are just a hateful person.

Because at your age, you should have let go of this hatred. But you didn’t. You spewed it disguised as “discipline” and smiled in satisfaction after doling it out.

And right now I do not feel any anger at you. Oh, I did feel anger, even rage back then but all that died out after I realised that hate has consumed you.

Now I feel only pity. For you and for all the students who you teach – if you are still teaching (god forbid). Because a person who discriminates and hates young minds – the same young minds he should be moulding -is never going to be at peace.

In the hindsight, I learned a lot from you. How to deal with extremely difficult people, how to never give in to irrational anger and how NOT to interact with young minds.

I am at an OK place now despite your meddling in my academic affairs and a deep part inside me wants to shove that in your face – that I turned out to be fine.

But why should I?

You are tormented enough by your own hatred.

I hope you find peace one day.

Yours sincerely,

The student you tormented but turned out to be OK.