Heya playa, have you ever been completely embarrassed in school before by your teacher
nonetheless? It's happened to me quite a few times so I wanted to talk about what my experience was
like and how I learned to reshape those moments into positive stories that I could talk about.
♫ This is The Josh Speaks ♫ ♫ You're watching The Josh Speaks ♫
My name is Josh and every single week I make videos sharing tips, ideas,
and stories teaching you how to be your best self and the very first time that I can remember
really getting embarrassed in school by my teacher was in the third grade.
At the time every third-grade class had to put on a different class play. For my class, we did
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Now I don't quite remember what the other class did but I do
remember what happened when our teacher wanted us to put together a card thanking them for all their
hard work. When the play finished and we got back to class our teacher put together a gigantic card
for every single student in our class to write a little message and sign. So when it finally got to
me I was thinking about what I wanted to write and I remembered the most popular movie at the
time which was Bill and Ted's Bogus Adventure, Now me being a little third grader didn't really
know what bogus meant and I thought it was just a cool and good word. I mean it was in the title of
this movie so I included that in my message. Dear class 315, your play was absolutely BOGUS! Signed
Josh. When the card got back to the teacher she started reading some of the messages and her eyes
just locked in on what I wrote and she just yelled at the top of her lungs "Josh you completely
ruined this card! What were you even thinking? How can you write something like that?" And little
me was all like "Uh, it was bogus like Bill and Ted's Bogus Adventure?". Yeah, that didn't really
sit well with her. She just continued to yell at me and embarrass me and make me feel incredibly
stupid in front of everyone else in my class but that's not as bad as what happened to me in
the sixth-grade my teacher took it up a notch for something that I felt like I had no control over.
Here I was little sixth-grade Josh trying to write my notes sitting in the front of the class when my
teacher decided to kind of rearrange the order of the seats so that different kids were sitting in
the front and other kids in the front were sitting in the back so that meant me who was kind of
sitting in the front writing all my notes now had to do it from the back. Little did I know that I
actually needed glasses for school so that I could see the board better and I could actually copy my
notes down. But at the time here I was now sitting in the back of the class squinting, trying to make
sense of what I see on the board. And this is one of those teachers that would just write mountains
of notes on the board and want you to copy it down when in reality they probably could have
just printed out a paper and gave us the notes rather than having us copy everything down in
our notebooks but that's a separate point. So my teacher's talking, other kids are writing and here
I am still struggling with the very beginning of the first few lines of what he wrote on the board
when he asked the whole class "All right I'm going to erase some of the notes. Did everyone copy it
down?" and I raise my hand and I say "Oh I haven't copied it down yet". So he walks over to my desk
sees my notebook completely bare with only one or two lines written out of the 20 or so lines that
he had and he just flips out on me. "What's taking you so long to write all the notes? What you can't
see them or something? Why don't you just raise your hand and say something? Why are you going
to let me move you to the back of the room without actually letting me know you can't see the notes?
Now you're going to hold up the rest of the class to make everyone else just not pay attention!".
And 6th grade me was all just like "Sorry". At the time I didn't know that I needed glasses to see
the board but what I did know was that my teacher completely embarrassed me in front of my entire
class including my crushes that were sitting there watching me as this whole thing unfolded. And
look, getting chewed out by your teacher in front of your crush is embarrassing but it's not as
embarrassing as what happened to me in high school when my teacher just kind of responded to me in
the most disappointing way in front of my crush and all my other friends. As a freshman in high
school biology class, I didn't really get the best grades. Sure I studied hard and I tried my best
but for some reason, I just couldn't do well on that teacher's exams. So one day he had given us a
test on one of those long scantron sheets and the thing about those scantrons was that the teachers
could easily grade them just put them in a machine and they mark it for you so we had gotten our
grades back a little bit later in that class and when my teacher finally came around to my desk to
give me my test back, it wasn't the best reaction. I think I had gotten like a 35 or something. It
was clearly a failing grade and the way that that teacher gave back those grades was he'd hold the
big stack look at the name and if you did good he'd give you back the grade face forward everyone
can see it and say "Wow you did a really good job". When he finally came to me with my failing
grade which I didn't really want a lot of people to know he just kind of slid it on the desk looked
me in the eyes and said, "Hmm, you could have probably done a lot better if you spend less
time goofing off at home and you spend more time studying". That's probably something you should
tell the student in private rather than saying it in front of all the other people sitting at their
table watching you give them back their grade. I was so incredibly embarrassed but even more,
I was disappointed in myself. Not because of my bad grade but because my teacher made me feel like
I didn't work hard enough. Sure, maybe I could have studied more but instead of encouraging me to
get a tutor, to form a study group, or to actively work on trying to improve my grades by seeking out
what my issues were he just shamed me in front of everyone and it just hurt so much. Looking back
on these experiences I can't help but feel sorry for little Josh who maybe didn't know better at
the time or didn't understand how to work on resolving those problems. And instead of the
teachers actively helping them understanding and trying to find a solution that worked with him,
they just berated him. They just came from a place of anger and ego and what they felt
rather than working with that little student. I know those teachers didn't set out to be mean and
they just kind of reacted in the situation but I feel like the biggest life lesson I gained was to
realize that teachers are fallible, teachers are human, teachers make mistakes just like everyone
else. So, when you feel like you're on the receiving end of someone trying to embarrass you,
think to yourself "Wow that is the behavior I don't want to exhibit. I want to do my best to
not create that intense moment for someone else by making them feel bad." Let these teachers and
their embarrassing situations they put you in be the life lesson and learning guide that you need
to be your best self. Now what I want you to do is check out the video over there on the side
where I'm going to go more into how to deal with embarrassing situations. I've encountered a lot
of them so I have quite a few tips that I think could be helpful for you. I also want to give a
huge shout out to my patrons and YouTube channel members. These are the people that help support
the channel so if you want to learn how you can talk to me one-on-one every single month check out
the link to Patreon down below. On that note, I'll catch you next time. As always, love and peace.