Little backstory: my art teacher is the worst. She favorites people, doesn’t care about 504s or IEPs, and I have autism, so I take that personally. me and a couple other students (all middle schoolers) reported her to our really chill teacher. He felt really bad for us and told administrator about it, and next thing you know, she‘s under investigation.

now the story: the student teacher was teaching a project with us, but before that, our real art teacher announced a new seating chart. She always has new seating charts, but she always compliments me and my friend Cruz, because we work together really well even though we are best friends. She constantly uses us as an example for the class, and promises to keep us together. We weren’t finished with our artwork, which was a dead body being dragged through the woods by a figure in a cloak, who we like to call Kingpin JR. (yes, our artworks are usually very gory)

When she got to our table, she said “cruz, you’re over here now” and pointed to the opposite side of the room. No warning, no signs, just did it. So now I’m pissed. I go to get my artwork from the drying rack outside the classroom (which she says we can leave to get it without asking, because that’s where most art ends up). The door is old and loud, and slams whenever you close it. but she writes that I left the room without asking, and that I slammed the door.

She comes to talk to me while I’m spinning masking tape around my index finger, trying to calm down. She says she wants to talk to me, and I say I have nothing to say. (My classmates in art always know I’ll stick up to her, and I have before, and every time it happens we call it a canon event. Wow 2 spider verse references lol) She says me spinning tape is distracting the class, who can’t even see me, as I’m in the back of the class. A kid drops something and picks it up and looks at me for a second, but that’s enough for our teacher. She stops the lesson and points me out and says I’m being disrespectful, and everyone shares looks of confusion. Nobody saw me doing that. She says “do you want me to call *security guard* down here? And I say sure while smiling.

he gets called down and starts getting mad at me, and asking me what happened. When I say what happened, my art teacher looks at me like I just called her 15 slurs, and says she never did that. I try to continue, but he yells at me to stop, and just instantly believes my art teacher. He wouldn’t let me speak so I just said “I’m going to the bathroom” (we were right outside the boys bathroom).

he runs after me and makes me sit down while I have to pee. i was literally having a panic attack, because he looked scary as hell. his eyes were wide open and he was yelling at me. I don’t even remember what he said, I was to busy having a panic attack. After another like 10 minutes, he lets me finally use the bathroom and let’s me go back inside the classroom.

I go over to organize materials and peel dry glue off of things (which my art teacher lets me do, and my job when we clean up is actually “glue”) when the security guard stops the lesson and says “I’m sorry, are people supposed to be working on projects right now?” And the student teacher (who was surprisingly calm and kind during all of this) says no. I say I’m just peeling glue. He asks me if I’m allowed to, and I say yes. He asks if this is the right time to be doing this and I say ”Maybe! Maybe not! I don’t know!”. while this is happening, I’m squeezing the same tape from earlier, and I feel another panic attack coming up.

He says “You tell me what this lesson is.” I said “I DON’T KNOW, YOU HAD ME OUTSIDE THE MAJORITY OF CLASS!” he says “how about the last 5 minutes you were in here, peeling glue??” And he thinks I wasn’t listening. You see, that’s what really pisses me off, and what I really like about that chill teacher I was talking about earlier. Most teachers think I’m incapable of multitasking. They think I’m not listening if I’m drawing or fidgeting or, in this case, peeling glue. That chill teacher, Mr. Z, knows I can, so he lets me. But I was listening that whole time.

So, while having a panic attack, tears FLYING down my face, squeezing the LIFE out of that roll of tape (it’s very broken now), I repeat everything the student teacher says. “SHE WAS ASKING STUDENTS WHAT THEY THINK THIS LESSON HELPS WITH AND EVERYBODY WHO RESPONDED, ANSWERED WITH HAND-EYE COORDINATION AND HOW IT CAN BE HELPFUL THROUGH DIFFERENT KINDS OF ART, AND THEN SHE SHIFTED THE TOPIC TO THE RIGHT AND LEFT SIDE OF OUR BRAINS AND HOW THE LEFT IS FOR LOGIC AND REASONING AND HOW THE RIGHT IS FOR CREATIVITY.” He didn’t know how to respond after that.

So that’s pretty much what happened, and I don’t think I can go back in that classroom without breaking down again. So I’m gonna find a way to skip that class every time. Thank you so much for reading! This took a while to type. Thanks, bye!