This happened over 12 years ago and it haunts me to this day. I was never a problem student when I was in high school. This was the only time a teacher ever punished me.

This was at a public school in an affluent suburban neighborhood. This was during Spanish class. Normally if we had a quiz scheduled for that day, our teacher began the quiz immediately. All my classmates loved having it first as the information being tested was still fresh in our minds. This day it was different. To everyone’s shock, our teacher began the class teaching a new lesson on conjugation. The lesson continued for 10 minutes, everyone was becoming anxious, including me, as the quiz material we studied for was gradually fading.

Our teacher made a brief pause, the class thought it meant the quiz was being passed out. Instead the teacher continued on the lesson, almost the entire class let out a very long moan of anguish.

I too moaned, then uttered to myself “Gosh when are we going to be able to take this god damn quiz”

The teacher paused, and then stared at me. “******, what did you just say?!?”

“See me after class I am calling your parents”

After class, my teacher called both my parents and told them what happened. When I got home my parents were completely bewildered, they weren’t sure what to tell me, as I never got in trouble in school before. They simply told me I need to be more patient, polite, and appreciate the lessons from the teacher. I too at the time did not understand why I was singled out.

In our Spanish class we had 2 classmates who were class clowns. This one time we had a pen pal project with another Spanish class. Class clown #1 thought it was funny to write to his pen pal that he was an illegal Mexican immigrant and he needed money and a green card. My Spanish teacher was not very happy when it was reported. She told the whole class not to joke around with stereotypes and told class clowns #1 don’t do it again. He did not get a call home to parents

This other time class clown #2 made a joke that involved lynching (don’t remember exact details). The class and the teacher laughed. Then the teacher regained composure and told everyone to calm down.

Looking back at it now, here are my guesses on why I was singled out and punished:

1. The Spanish teacher heard what I uttered and thought I said it directly at her.

2. She was having a bad day and I made it worse when I uttered the words that came out of my mouth

3.My last guess would be the word “god damn”. My teacher(her own personal opinion or religious background) probably felt it was equivalent or worse than saying the “f” word.

For those who read this, did you feel I deserved to be punished in this incident that occurred over 12 years ago? Is the word “god damn” really that bad of a word?