Irrational childhood fears

[junediamanti]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Martha" 
<fakeplastikcynic at h...> wrote:
 I was scared that if I disobeyed my teacher at school, God would 
> kill my little brother (and my teacher was happy to foster such 
> beliefs in us, so I was kind of scared of her too. Once, she set 
the 
> bin on fire and claimed it wasn't happening). 

June:
This sounds like the sort of teacher that needs a bit of remedial 
professional development training - or maybe just dismissal.  I 
recall one or two similar psychos myself.  I had one who smacked my 
(7 year old) hand with a ruler for getting some maths wrong (before 
such practices were banned) - this didn't teach me anything except a 
real fear of numbers which I didn't really overcome for another ten 
years.

Stephen King once wrote a wonderful story about that kind of teacher 
called "Here by Tygers" where an absolute bitch of an elementary 
school teacher gets gobbled up by a tiger in the boys toilet - in his 
author note, he says she is based on a real teacher of his, and 
adds "if a real tiger had gobbled her up I guess I could have gotten 
behind it... you know how kids are."

June