The Classroom Narcissist
I am Chloe. I am 18 years old and I had an affair with my teacher, Mr Stevens or Phil as I came to call him.
I am not some silly girl, although they have repeatedly tried to tell me that I am. Believe me, I have felt the weight of my opponents as they tried to convince me, no doubt orchestrated by Phil, that I dreamt the whole thing up. Still, it is to be expected isn’t it, that they, the teachers, will close ranks and look out for one another. That is what they do isn’t it? I have lost friends because of this, but I realise they are just jealous and they fancied Phil just like me, only I got to have him. I don’t blame them for fancying him, he is good looking and funny and he has that easy air about him that makes him so likeable, but what they don’t realise that it is all an act. Phil the Flirt, Phil the Mate but when it suits him he remains Phil the Teacher, set apart and to stay apart.
He started it of course. I won’t deny that I liked him from the beginning. Everybody does. He is a popular teacher and being good-looking as well is never going to cause him a problem in the popularity stakes, but you see, he knows all of this, he plays on all of this and boy does he use it. He uses it to reel you in and then, and here is the clever part, he uses it as his defence. “I cannot help it if they take advantage of my popularity,” he protests as he maintains his innocence. He is not innocent. And he took my innocence.
He started it. I recognised the way he looked at me. He always looked for me in class before anybody else, as if ensuring that I was there in my usual seat and then giving me ‘that smile’. Oh, he smiles at everyone I was told. He does not smile for them the way he does, or rather did, for me. I am not stupid. I may be young but I saw how he would stare at me, how I could feel his gaze on me, how I could tell from the corner of my eye that he was stood besides me and was looking down my blouse. Who wouldn’t? I am attractive, I have my fair share of boys chasing after me and Mr Stevens is a man, he is flesh and blood, so he is bound to look isn’t he? He wasn’t meant to touch though but he did. Oh he touched me, in so many ways and he knew what he was doing.
I had heard that others had become besotted with him before. Rumours of some girl a few years ago who had to be persuaded to move to another school because she fell in love with him and would not leave him alone. I tried to find her actually but got nowhere. Some say he got her pregnant and she had to have an abortion, her parents hushing it all up as they did not want the scandal. Some say it is all made up. They have said the same to me.
I know what I saw. The cheeky winks just for me, the slightly longer smile than usual aimed at me. The way he usually asked me first when I put my hand up to answer a question. He was besotted with me first. I tried to tell them this but they dismissed what I said. Told me I was reading too much into him just being friendly, that I was trying to see things which were not there because I was desperate for his approval.
He was always encouraging, praising me for my work. I always enjoyed history but it became even better when he was allocated as my teacher. I worked hard because I wanted good results and I wanted him to be pleased with my work. I got high marks from the beginning and I now realise this was his way of reeling me in, making me feel special, marking me out for special treatment. He advocated on my behalf that I should be a candidate for Oxbridge (prestige British universities) and that meant extra tuition ; with him of course. Now, I am good enough to get in to Oxford or Cambridge (I chose Oxford) but he clearly saw this as his opportunity to isolate me from the other students and cleverly, from witnesses. After all, plenty of people across the various subjects have these Oxbridge tutorials after college hours, but he used his to teach me about more than the Tudor dynasty and the English Civil War.
Once he had me in those special tuition one-on-ones, then it was inevitable where it would end up. I was not complaining. I wanted his attention, absolutely, although of course he should have known better. He was the one in a position of trust, a man in a position of authority and I was just the pupil. Yes, I wanted him, but I didn’t realise that he was the one who had engineered for me to feel that way. That is what these predators do. They make it seem like your doing, but he hypnotised me and made me fall under his spell.
He was always so assured, doing just enough to maintain an element of doubt should he have misjudged the situation, just enough to be able to protest it was an innocent gesture. The hand on the shoulder, the hug of congratulations, the slightly-too-long touching of fingers when passing a book or an essay to one another. Oh, he was good, he knew what he was doing, steadily reeling me in and making me the centre of the universe. He chose me from the very beginning and little by little he reeled me in. He used his influence to bring me to heel and have me on my knees (how he relished seeing me on my knees) and I lapped up his attention and more besides.
Soon the secret trysts began. Arrangements made in his office with that Stuart family tree covering the door window so nobody could see what went on in his office. So much for transparent government, he still subscribed to the idea of an absolute monarchy. He never used his ‘phone, clever old Phil. He made it seem romantic, the whispered instructions of where to meet and when, always outdoors, never in places where we would be seen. No traces left, no observers, no evidence. He was a master at this game and I was clearly naive, but I am not a silly little girl.
And then he dropped me. No explanation. He became cold. Civil yet cold. I tried to get my friends to see how he treated me differently but they told me that I was imagining it. My grades remained excellent but the Phil that held me and read to me from historical texts and delighted me with his knowledge was gone. The Oxbridge tutelage came to a conclusion as the entrance examinations loomed ; he had no reason to be alone with me and even though I sought an audience with him, this absolute monarch would not grant me admittance.
So I spoke out. Why shouldn’t I? He told me he loved me and I loved him too. Yet once he had my innocence (or rather once he had it two score) he considered me conquered and of no great interest to him anymore. Nobody treats me like this. I will bring him down. He is not going to get away with it. Oh, I know they think I have made this all up, some kind of revenge for not getting my way, but they have underestimated me. I am not going to be denied and I will make the all see, even my parents who for some inexplicable reason have sided with him. I shouldn’t be surprised though, the have always hated me for some reasons, they are frauds to think they can call themselves mother and father. No, I know this is how his kind behave. They turn everyone against you, cut you off and paint you as the trouble maker. That is not me. I am the victim.
I am Mr Stevens. I am 30 years old and a teacher of history. I still am, although I am currently suspended as a consequence of the ridiculous allegations of a fantasist. It is an outrage that someone’s made-up fantasy has the potential to ruin a man’s career.
I am no fool. I have taught for nearly a decade and I know the tricks pupils get up to. I have seen them all. I have always been a teacher who adopts the ‘carrot’ approach. You always get further with honey rather than vinegar. Oh, I know there are one or two sticks in the mud in the staff room who regard my popularity with sniffed disdain, but that is just jealousy on their part. My results speak for themselves. Plenty of students choose to study history and between Miss Kelshaw and I, we make a formidable team. Thankfully Miss Kelshaw has supported me in this unpleasant matter although I always knew she would do so. Sensible lady.
You do walk a tight rope at times when you are friendly, yet firm, with the students. I am not their friend but I do not have to be their enemy either. I love history and my natural enthusiasm for the topic is something I try to install in my charges too. If you love something, you always do better don’t you? It does not feel like a bind or a chore. By ensuring those who choose to study history with me really love it and want to live and breathe it, I weed out the ones where it is not for them nice and early and they move to a different subject in the first two weeks. Plus doing that ensures that I am only going to get those who are going to get the best grades, so it is a win-win all around. I want to make my mark on this college. I will be the principal one day, although at present it appears that moral principles are ones which are trying to attract my attention to a greater degree.
Chloe Fowler is a good student. She will do well. Polite if something of an attention-seeker. Always first to stick her hand in the air an one to air an opinion on absolutely anything and everything. Nothing really wrong with that I suppose, at least she has learned the mantra of make a point and then ensure you have something to back it up when she advanced her arguments. I taught her just as I taught everybody else ; to the best of my ability.
Unfortunately for me, she mis-read my concern for her education as meaning something else. What can I do about that? I am not going to sit behind a screen and isolate myself from my students am I? That is not how I operate. I am not a ‘no smiles before Christmas’ kind of guy. Not at all. History needs to be alive, accessible and most of all enjoyable. It is like anything in this life – if you enjoy it, make it yours and you will succeed. I want all my students to succeed.
Yes, I selected Chloe Fowler for Oxbridge tutelage. That was the right selection and I still say it is, despite her ridiculous allegations. She has her keen mind, too keen as it happens. I have read what she has accused me of, or rather the police office read it to me and it is all nonsense, a made-up fairy tale. I see she has been clever though, she has ensured that she has accused me when there was nobody else available to witness our interactions. It is always the case that those chosen for Oxbridge tuition see their tutors in their offices. That has always been the case and I am pleased that my fellow teachers and the principal have confirmed that to be the case. I knew they would back me on this. It is an occupational hazard of ours, infatuated students who start to think they are the apple of your eye. Usually it is nothing more than a harmless term-long crush and they grow out of it, but not this girl. She has something seriously wrong with her. Has to have to come out with the lies she has spouted. Suggesting we had sex beneath ‘the tree that Charles the Second hid in’. I know that to be a lie ; that tree was destroyed hundreds of years ago. Everything she has spouted is just the slops of the mind of a fantasist and she is dangerous. Nobody is going to believe her. I know the police have to go through the motions but it will be soon kicked in to touch. She has done this because I rejected her. I didn’t reject her outright, after all there was nothing to reject, we had no romantic relationship, there was no flirtation, nothing. It is clear, however, she thought otherwise and in that warped mind of hers, she has felt rejected in some way and this is the result. An expensive and unnecessary investigation, plus the interference to the other students, no wonder so many have turned against her.
I know she liked me. I am a likeable person but I maintained a proper teacher-student relationship and she has seen fit to dream up something else. What can you do? Put cameras everywhere I suppose but then who wants that, surely there has to be some element of trust between us? Am I annoyed? Of course I am. I haven’t done anything wrong and along comes this girl and she spouts all manner of idiocy and she is treated seriously. I mean, anybody can see this is a tissue of lies. This had better not affect my promotion prospects or I will be taking legal action too. Thankfully the local paper have not reported anything about it so far, that conversation I had with the deputy editor seems to have worked, so far so good on that front. He is a good friend and does not want to see the reputation of a hard-working and successful teacher sullied. What annoys me most is how easy it is for someone like her to make these things up and next thing it is suspension and investigation. They tell me that it is a neutral act but I know there will be those trotting out the old ‘no smoke without fire’ rubbish.
I realise that when you are decent-looking chap like me and because you are friendly and get to share a joke with the students, some might blur the boundaries but it is one thing for them to be blurred and another for them to be crossed. Am I to be punished just for being popular, because that is what she is trying to do?
I am not going to change my style though. I am a hands-on teacher and that always gets results and one besotted fantasists is not going to make Phil Stevens change how he teaches. No way.
It is ridiculous. As if I would be interested in some 16 year old (which is how she says she was when this started) when I have a gorgeous wife at home. That in itself should tell those looking into this that this is a witch hunt by a disturbed adolescent who should be studying for her exams and getting help with whatever problem she has, rather than trying to ruin the life of an honest and decent man. I am the victim in all of this.
Who is the class room narcissist?
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73 thoughts on “The Classroom Narcissist”
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Vi
Have you ever seen Fritz Lang’s, ‘Metropolis?’ Do so, big screen if you can.
I saw it last year at a local arts centre with a live band. Couldn’t get over how ahead of its time the film was. Still relevant today.
Yes, of course Phil. Why would anyone think it’s Chloe. “Phil” is Donald Trump. “Chloe” is Karen McDougal, and all the women he had affairs with. While she thinks she’s the only one. he had your ‘replacement’ already in queue.
Karen also said, “I wasn’t stupid”, but the whole world knows she is stupid (for having an affair with a married man). Of course, if you are in that position, you think you are not stupid.
The thing is a narc, make hints/baits to make you “cross the line”, so he can play innocent. So you are aware you crossing the line, but you are still doing it anyway, because you think you are “smart” enough to get away, before he discard you first. You didn’t see it coming. But the narc is more evil than your calculation. You think you are evil enough, you think he would play along with “one on one” game, but the narc never think you are his equal, and he is evil-er than you.
What is the answer, HG?
Both of them but have no idea which school. Both mid rangers?
.It’s mr. Stevens …although it is was tricky to pick as the teenage girl gave away clues when she stated that her parents sided with the teacher and hated for no reason. As for the rest of her behavior it can come off as being a bratty teenager. But mr. Stevens wouldn’t stop praising himself and what a decent good looking man he is, how others were jealous etc…. He also has motive of becoming the principal and having his legacy at that school. So he was not going to let that little girl get in the way . His facade maintenance, charm and good looks got others siding with him. He also has a lieutenant on the police department who’s got his back that word doesn’t come out about this matter…there u have it HG . Hopefully we made the right choice whom ever picked the teacher…but i know part your motive from this article is to see how we think and gain more knowledge about us…bc I think u wrote this article in a loop where u get to pick the answer and change it around If u wanted . 😉 wrath of the lamb is more destructive then fury.
Narc’s love the he-say-she-say, but in legal matters (at least in the US) ties tend to go to the minor, unless they are proven to have a history of falsehoods. No minor is capable of consent. Teachers are held to a certain standard and had better know it before they enter the profession. Phil is crazy to be so stubborn about changing his style for fear of his loss of popularity. As a union rep for the teachers at a large high school I have seen this kind of stubbornness in action and know from experience Phil will soon be selling insurance, used cars or studying for his real estate license. If he’s really bent on getting his comeuppance, he may go to law school.
Perhaps, their facade protects them and minors are often emotionally distraught by these events ( if they are the victim ) which can make them appear “stupid”. Powerful men generally band together though and will victim shame. I think as empaths (and females) that leads us to naturally side with the young woman… as many of us may have been in those situations. I know I was… I was pursued by a teacher, I eventually told my parents who made the choice only to speak to the teacher to tell him to stay away from me… as it was my last year in that school, she did not want to press charges, she felt it would only cause me more pain to have to endure that entire process. While I have often thought about what may have happened if my parents made a different choice… I think their instinctual choice to GOSO was a good one… it allowed me to free myself of him and move forward with my life. Since the teacher never got as far as having sexual intercourse with me (although it was headed that direction) I think that allowed me to heal faster and because that line wasn’t “crossed” my parents probably felt the better option was to move on.
Interesting, thank you for sharing your perspective, E007.
I must have missed this before! wow how did I miss this! I vote both.
Probably because you were smoking behind the bike sheds rather than paying attention.
and for this I get…?
Alexis
You get for this, your downright INSOLENCE!!?? A detention. 100 lines. Repeat after me.
‘I should pay more attention to Hgs works’
If you do not do this, it will be six of the best. No warm up.
Oh god! I’ve been waiting for this!
Don’t be so enthusiastic: further insubordination may be followed by Celine Dion.
Vi
I’ve noticed a certain ‘frothiness’ with Alexis recently.
Alexis, have you been reading SATN again? Especially THAT part? I expect you could quote it verbatim by now! Which gives me an idea for another punishment…
However, I concur with my honourable colleague on the Celine Correction.
There are many levels to punishment. The next will involve a double whammy of Corden Carpool. I think God McCartney and Madge would work nicely…
Mmm silent treatment. My absolute favourite x
See the rules.
nope! I prefer silent treatment
Save it isn’t.
I was torn between picking the both option. It was the last paragraph that made me want to pick both. However what was in my mind is narcs will target those who will fall victim easily and are the products of narc parents for example which could have been her. The rest of what she was feeling was pretty standard for a teen girl. If you ever have to go out with a boy your own age during these years you can see why. They are immature, an mentally a few years behind. Older guys are more appealing to most teen girls.
The teacher clearly has his staff room haters who see him for what he is, but has his firm set of allies like his other female history teacher/paper editor to back him. He’s got his wife set up as a perfect cover story and is using it as such. Any normal teacher that kept getting accused of this would change their practices. Saying it’s too risky for one to one tutorage now etc. He flatly refused…..why should he change…….There are definite red flags for her, she is playing the victim. HE should have known better, but she is almost 18 and knew this was wrong as well .She is taking her responsibility, but at the same time blame shifting……..She’s the confusing one for me in this. I have a feeling she is a narc. But not strong enough to vote yes hahaha.
Fascinating exercise, HG, and I pegged both to be narcissists. Both seem to have plausible explanations for what occurred, neither is willing to take responsibility, projection and blame shifting is occurring on both parts and both seem to share a sense of entitlement with a lack of boundaries. So, I’m basing this on my current understanding.
Emotional thinking could possibly lead to the view that the young woman is necessarily the victim, partly due to her youth (understandable in terms of being easily influenced by an older man) and also because she is female, therefore she is more likely to be seen as the one who is ‘done to’ rather than the one who ‘does’ as per the notion of the predatory nature of men.
I want to root for the student who may have been taken advantage of and also root for the teacher who may have been wrongly accused and could possibly find his livelihood on the line, all on the say so of a student who may be upset that her teacher is perceived, for some reason, to have rejected her.
Narcissists are cunning individuals who are masters at manipulation. Both appear to fit the bill.
In the past I have been fascinated by the case of Mary Kay Letourneau, a teacher who was impregnated by her 12/13yr old student. There is no doubt in my mind now she must be a narcissist, as well as a child rapist. Very rarely do we hear of women weaving their spell in such an egregious manner – an older woman with a young boy. But, narcissism crosses the boundaries of the sexes and this, I believe, is one example.
There may be a case for reviewing some of our thinking around who is the victim and who is the perpetrator at times. I certainly thought so after reading HGs book series (Seduction and Ensnared).
Thank you and everybody else for your observations. I find it interesting to read the pattern of thought applied, such constructive contributions are always welcomed.
Just wondering, are we going to get your opinion at some stage HG?
I hate it when I don’t know the answer …
Lickemtomorrow
I utterly agree with your thought process on automatically wanting to believe the student because of her youth and gender. Bias. It was in my thinking too.
However, like you, I spotted my own bias and concur. Both are Ns.
As a teacher myself, I’ve had a few incidences. Usually older boys who just, kind of gaze at you.
One incident though was VERY disturbing. Year 12 lad. Never taught him before. Bit strange I thought he was.
I look up the SEN list and lo! He is there. Reading his personal statement…well he said, ‘Whenever a woman comes near me and I can smell her, I want to hurt her.’ I now look at him. You would never guess it. The things that go on in peoples minds.
I never had trouble with him but he was odd.
As a student, yeah I had a mad pash on my History teacher. Intelligent, well read, witty with a tremendous arse. And utterly professional.
Teaching! Who would do it!
Hi Renarde, yes, I was trying not to let my bias interfere with my conclusions there. It does have an affect, so the application of logic (which I am learning here as well) definitely makes a difference.
I once sat on the jury in a sexual assault case. All I can say is that is was harrowing sitting in judgement of another human being. The lawyers are at their finest and let no stone go unturned. The Judge had to direct the jury on at least one occasion to ignore a ‘loaded’ question by the defence after an objection was raised. The problem there is you can’t unhear what you have heard. It does make a difference.
As to your student, that certainly sounds worrying and I’m glad you didn’t have any problems with him. My guess is there will be someone who will have a problem with him further down the road.
I wouldn’t think sexual attractions between students and teachers are that odd. And definitely the teacher is in a position of power which can be abused. In that sense, the onus is on the teacher to ensure the boundaries are firm.
I attended an all girls private Grammar school. We had one male teacher. He wasn’t a ‘turn on’ 😉
And what did you think go the female teachers?
They didn’t turn me on either 😉
lickemtomorrow
I’ve never been called to jury service. What you must have undergone is simply harrowing.
Yeah the lad. Undoubtedly, will have caused problems. Disordered thinking. What suprised me is that the SENCO didnt flag this to all the female teachers and their line managers. Mind you, S was a fucking idiot. Another teacher one day asked her to say something in latin (she was Classics). ‘Oh dont test me!. Fuck off.
So you can’t do your job on either front? Terrific!
I too had a very creepy teacher. Music. He was strange. But then my brother reliably informed me that they had locked the utterly useless IT teacher in a cupboard.
Bonkers!
Hi Renarde, I was 24 when I was called up for Jury duty, so quite young by some estimates. I wasn’t rejected by either side during selection, so it seems both held out some hope for me to be swayed by their arguments. We had to be sequestered for a time after the trial for deliberations, but we got there in the end.
School can be nuts, and so can some of the people working in them – not including you, of course 🙂 But, it seems some people just set out to make life hard for others.
You might be interested in this. We has a maths teacher in Yr.9 who had won a medal (or several) for mathematics competitions, but couldn’t teach maths for sh*t! I failed maths in 9th Grade thanks to her. She just couldn’t explain the basics. I think when you are that brilliant at something you just don’t understand how other people don’t get it. But her method was to get us to open our books and just work on them ourselves without really providing much instruction. I struggled. But, I took maths again in Yr.10 (after the school agreed to let me do so, failure at maths that I was) just to prove I could do it. And I did 🙂 And I did feel a little sorry for her as well. She had terrible BO and I can’t tell you the fun that was made behind her back.
Is it possible teachers don’t get paid enough?
Lickem
Oh absolutely! In both maths and Physics, question work is vital! But it has to be underpinned by grass work teachy work.
There was a terrible thing that happened in my primary. We were not taught maths. We had to learn from ‘cards’. This was unforgivable. It set me back years. When we moved and now in a different primary, it was spotted immediately.
Imagine, not teaching infant kids maths? It’s just freakin bonkers!
When I saw my own children’s maths. I looked at it and thought, this is fucking insane. I could not grasp the logic behind it.
Of course, it had been designed by people who were not in STEM to make it easier for them to disseminate the subject.
Maths is incredibly easy but more often, you get morons who are in charge.
If it’s not easy, it’s the teachers fault. End. Of.
I had an utterly brilliant Maths GCSE teacher. She was incredibly kind and patient. Unfortunately, she didn’t have complete class control, even in top set.
I remember one day, I was on a cover for a maths class. I got so pissed off, I taught the lesson. Showed them how algebra works. Cover teachers shouldn’t do this but clearly the students were crying out
Hope I taught them more than that fuckwit did.
It may be a breach of No Contact, but I checked my FU mail, from which I haven’t been ejected yet (presumably, Covid has delayed pruning the listserve) just to see if any former students or colleagues like my mentor tried to get in touch with me.
I have learned that, just as narc exes won’t treat your replacement any better, narc employers won’t treat their new hires any better (although at least this batch is getting a better interface and remote meeting app):
First email:
Keeping Higher Education Within Reach
As a student-centered university in-tune with the financial challenges so many of our students face when pursuing a degree, F U is committed to keeping a degree within reach. As a result, we are pleased to share some exciting with you.
In addition to maintaining our current tuition rates for the 2020-21 academic year, we are introducing the FU Tuition Guarantee, beginning with the Fall 2020 term. The guarantee enables new students to lock-in their tuition rates from the first-term to graduation. The guarantee applies to students who remain actively enrolled in associate, bachelor’s or master’s degree and certificate programs. Current/continuing students who enrolled prior to the Fall 2020 term, will lock-in at the 2019-20 rate.
To maintain the guaranteed rate, students must maintain active-enrollment status as defined in F U’s Academic Catalog by completing at least one term per year. Completing the term means that the student has received a verified, transcripted grade in at least one course.
The FU Tuition Guarantee is another facet of FU’s commitment to keeping education affordable for students. In addition to maximizing transfer credit (up to 94 hours), the tuition guarantee further lowers the out-of-pocket cost of a bachelor’s degree for transfer students – many of whom have already been drawing against financial aid maximums. In addition to providing additional motivation to maintain consistent enrollment, taking advantage of the guarantee also helps students:
Plan for remaining tuition expenses with certainty
Maximize funding sources like employer reimbursement and financial aid
Minimize out-of-pocket costs
Attached for your reference is a list of talking points and frequently asked questions to assist in your conversations. Implementation questions should be addressed to Blah-blah, Director of Implementation & Planning Services. For additional information or clarification, please contact Natter-natter, Vice President of marketing.
Translation:
We don’t want you taking your credits from here and transferring to the state university for your diploma so employers might take you more seriously.
If the economy sags to the point that we need to lower our tuition to keep the university afloat, you’re locked-in to the current rate. But cheer up: we’ll probably let the uni close rather 5hsn lower tuition, and go scarpering off into the sunset with our Golden parachutes while you’re left with unfinished degrees and credits you may or may not be able to transfer.
Email #2:
Good afternoon!
June 8 marked the initial cohort of INST585, a new Faculty Development course that, over a period of nine weeks, will qualify instructors to both teach and advise at the doctoral level. This course will replace the two previous Faculty Development courses INST580 and INST581.
Instructors who have completed either INST580 or INST581 in the past, but who have not completed both courses, now have a special opportunity to complete their qualifications without being required to take the entire INST585 qualifying course:
· If you have completed INST580 but not INST581, you may opt to complete the INST581 substitute course that begins on July 13 and will run for five weeks.
· If you have completed INST581 but not 580 you may opt to complete the INST580 substitute course that begins on July 27 and will run for three weeks.
Successful completion of the aforementioned substitute courses if you have taken one of the 580 courses will qualify you as a doctoral teacher and advisor. If you have already completed one and do not wish to be qualified for the other, then you do not need to take a substitute course.
Please note: The 580 and 581 substitutes will only be offered once during this transitional period. After the July run of these courses, any instructors who have not completed both INST580 and INST581, but who wish to serve as doctoral faculty advisors or as dissertation committee members, must successfully complete INST585 in its entirety.
To enroll, or if you have any questions, please reach out to me at GoldenGirl@FU
Best,
Dr. Golden Girl
Translation: No matter how long you’ve taught here or elsewhere, we’re still going to take up your time with a never-ceasing round of training courses that have nothing to do with your actual job.
We will, however, continue to spring new software and curricula on you with neither adequate training nor even warning.
It’s a hamster wheel. You can’t catch up.
Bwaa-ha-HA-ha-HA!
Vi
I found that confusing and baffling in equal measure.
I think that, whilst I dont know your U, a lot of Us are going to be facing bankruptcy. Good I say.
It was Tony Blair who insisted that 50% of the UK needed a degree.
I do believe one of Hgs favourite books is Huxley’s ‘A Brave New World’. I have read it. Many years ago. The concept of the alphas and the omega is fascinating.
Renarde:
I did find a practical use for FU’s last textbook. It’s just the right thickness to go under the air conditioner on the inside windowsill, to balance the wooden planks my former neighbor fastened to keep it from toppling onto somebody’s head on the outside.
I have a photo, but don’t know any way to post it. It warms my heart to look at it.
Vi
Good work!
Renarde:
There’s going to be a new version of BNW on NBC Peacock streaming (which I probably won’t see–no streaming or cable). They are changing a lot: SW white trash instead of tribes for the”Savage Lands,” John is into music, Lenina’s character grows more than Huxley described, and one article described Linda as being played by a “stunning” Demi Moore (in the book, Linda has aged pretty badly, thanks to being cut off from all the rejuvenating technologies of her society).
There was a ’90s version dressed very ’90s, because they wanted to show the dystopian parallels to contemporary society. I’ve never seen the 70s version, so I don’t know how faithful it is, but a lot of the aesthetic in the book seems pretty glamrock to me, so it might work very well.
The thing about Huxley’s class system is it is every bit as rigid as the hereditary class system of his time, though scientifically imposed. One of my ancestors was bright enough to win a scholarship to a grammar school, but he still had to drop out and go work in a Yorkshire factory when he was 12 or 13. Meanwhile, you had upper class twits who hadn’t the sense to come out of a shower of pigeon pee, but their way through the publics and either a military commission or a seat in parliament was pretty much paved for them. (See the 1960s Charge of the Light Brigade for the Victorian horror of meritocracy in action.)
BNW cuts through the uncertainty of genetics by deliberately brain-damaging low-ranking embryos in surrogate bottles, conditioning them to fear books and flowers with alarms and electric shocks, so they won’t waste time without consuming products (or get ideas they shouldn’t have), and repeats to sleeping Betas that they should be so glad they don’t have to work so awfully hard as Alphas. It goes a step further than the British class system by insisting that you must love your place, not just keep to it. Full circle with the far less hedonistic 1984, where you must love Big Brother, not just obey him.
I’m not sure how much choice we have in our world, and my worries over the bad economy have the add-on that work Narcs luuuurve targeting me. Many of the techniques HG recommends in the Narcissist at Work will be effective in office jobs where you can use email or the phone to keep your distance, but if I end up being lucky to get something like a McJob waiting tables or retail, both of which I did after college, (or working infant day care, which I would otherwise love), that won’t be so feasible. Management in the first two areas is just frothing with big-mouthed bullying lessers; any kind of child care or lower-grades education usually attracts the mid-rangers.
There are barely any openings in government or college teaching right now, or I could at least hope to get a Greater as a boss (I could live with that. If you’re going to be exploited, have it done by the best). One govt job I applied for was cancelled, another was still open as of May, but I don’t know if they’re interviewing anyone, given lockdown plus protests. Downtown has one block after another boarded up. Preppy icon Brooks Brothers is filing for bankruptcy, as are J. Crew and Hertz (why rent a car when you can’t go anywhere?).
Meanwhile, Stanfordd u is cutting 11 sports, so coaching staff jobs are gone along with athletic scholarships; I wouldnt be a Zoomer for anything.
Maybe the job market will look better in a few weeks, although some sources say we could be wearing masks for the next 2 years. Maybe the Victorians and Huxley’s dystopians were more realistic, not educating us beyond what we were going to end up doing. I just thought that era was over, and it may have returned within my lifetime. Should I envy those of my classmates who escaped Prof. She-Who-Must and got tenured positions, or give myself credit for being willing and able to take a crap job if necessary, because I’ve done it before?
Sorry, HG, I’ve done one of my epic-length posts again.
Vi
You always raise some intresting and well thought out points which in return make me think. That’s priceless. Thank you.
And for heads up on new series.
Oh yeah. Grammar. Both my gran her son went. As did mums sister. Mum wasn’t even entered for the 11+. I grew up with the concept but by the time it was my turn; all gone. What had been a brave experiment, the increasing of the places in the 20 century was no more.
Of course I taught at a very high performing grammar but to be honest, my comp ed was always going to hold me back. It almost certainly did when I went for teaching places at Public School.
I had taught the interview lesson. Frankly, I thought half were idiots. At lunch we’re chit chatting and head of chemistry pops out, ‘I was at Repton’ (For US folks is an expensive, well known public school, Dahl attended.).
‘Oh, how was it teaching there?’
‘Oh no, I attended’
Incredible. I wonder if he thought he was superior to me with my bog standard comp background. Probably, we wouldn’t have got on, because he’d just proven he was a semi-epsilon.
So yeah, the class system is still alive and kicking. Even now, despite John Major’s best attempts.
Goes the other way. My bestie pretty much damn near called me a class traitor for me having the temerity to suggest that I might go to Oxbridge.
Huxley was right. There can be little to know free thinkers in society. We must all love our allotted position. I think thats maybe why I largely dropped out of society. Fed up of being told what to think, what to wear, what to say. How to behave. Being treated like an object. Only last week, another one did it.
Yeah, you got me thinking on Huxley and Orwell. Huxley also wrote The Doors of Perception. I’ve got a copy of 1984 I think. I may read that today.
I think both were visionaries, seeing ahead of their time. I think Atwood is too.
Still cant bring myself to read that!
Good luck on job/s BTW!
LET
I can’t reply to your comment below, so I’ll answer your question here, re teachers not getting paid enough: you’re damn right they don’t. Where I live, teachers get the lowest or second lowest wages in Europe, even if wages vary according to their level of qualification. Doesn’t mean we can’t pay for water and deodorant, though!
That’s unreal, Fiddleress, and I thought as much. You really do deserve to be paid better for what you do. I’m sure there’ll be a greater appreciation, at least from parent’s, once their children have been able to return to school after the current crisis. It’s daunting for everybody, but teachers have also been marvellous about working around the issues to still connect with their students. Definitely underappreciated. And now I know underpaid as well!
Lol to the water and deoderant 😉 In all honesty, I don’t think it was a hygiene issue as much as it was an issue of her having overactive sweat glands or some such thing. I always thought the teasing was cruel and didn’t join in. She couldn’t help it.
And I can’t blame her completely for my failure in maths. I’m just not mathematical.
Lickemtomorrow, I’m not very mathematical either. I had to do maths till the end of high school because at the time, we had no choice but to study all subjects till the end of Lower 6th, and most till the end of Upper 6th (or their equivalent – end of High School). I wasn’t too bad at Maths, just didn’t enjoy it much.
Oh, I see (re that teacher’s problem), I understand, now. It must be awful to have that problem. Not many pupils will not join in the teasing (or worse) of teachers, but I am not surprised that you did not 🙂
I teach mainly 6th formers, and students a few hours a week at university (as non-tenured lecturer). On one occasion, I found that a class I was teaching seemed to be in a merry mood indeed, and I thought “wow, they are really getting my sense of humour today”. Until one girl took pity on me and let me know that I’d hitched the back of my skirt in my underwear – after a trip to ‘powder my nose’, no doubt – so that when I had my back to them, they could admire my… let’s say my legs! I just found it funny (and did put my skirt back into place), Well, those were nice students anyway, so they weren’t cruel or anything.
I can’t answer your comment below right now, but I’m so glad your students were kind enough to let you know the cause of their merriment and you were able to be good natured about it, too. Not easy when you find yourself in that situation!
I once had a similar incident at a club. Took myself straight onto the dance floor 😛
Worse things could happen (not!)
Thanks for the back up on not being very mathematical. I found my strength in other areas.
Haha, the dance floor… well, that’s a more sensible place to be in that situation than a classroom.
And yes, there is worse than getting your skirt caught in your underwear: I live in a country whose head of government sees absolutely no problem in appointing as Minister of the Interior (Minister of the Interior!) a man who is facing rape charges. This happened just two days ago. So my skirt story is probably ‘business as usual’, seen in that light.
I don’t know what it is about Maths that seems to make it THE criterion for intelligence in many people’s minds, at least here. If you are a good pupil, you are always encouraged to do Maths and Sciences – which makes sense in our times, I guess, but let’s remember it’s just that: what society needs.
Until the industrial revolution, being able to speak and write and therefore think properly were valued above all else.
I was no good at chemistry and physics, and biology, most of the time.
Of course you found your strength in other areas. I did too. And I do not have the slightest shame at being useless in science. Give me words, in any language, any day! Just not narcspeak.
Fiddleress
OMG, your skirt in knickers story is so funny! You poor love!
Wardrobe malfunctions are well known, arent they?
I’ve not had anything like that but one day, I had bought a brand new blouse. Liked it I did.
I’m just preparing for the first lesson of the day. How I managed what I did remains a mystery.
Somehow, I was adjusting my clothing, as you do, and all of the buttons fall off, leaving me neatly exposed in my bra.
I run in panic to the lab tech, M. Have you a needle and thread? No. But H has. Go to her. And I’ll sort out your class.
I’ve never sewn as fast in my life.
Hi Renarde
Glad I made you laugh too.
But your bra story beats my skirt story hands down. I could just picture the scene as I was reading about it!
I tend to avoid clothes that button down the front because I could just imagine the same happening to me (and I can’t sew very well!). And then I’d be overworked with students staying behind at the end of class to… ask questions about the lesson, haha.
Want another story? An embarrassing one, this is. I breastfed both my kids (mothers get several months of paid maternity leave, here – just thought I’d make you all jealous), but after I stopped, I still lactated at times. And sure enough, first time this happened was in a lesson. So I found myself with two damps circles on my blouse. No one reacted. They must have thought I had some serious illness. I pretended I was cold and just put on my jacket for the rest of the time, because I tend not to carry my wardrobe around with me to work, and had nothing to change into. It was padding in the bra from then on for me, till it stopped.
As I said, embarrassing.
LET:
“Very rarely do we hear of women weaving their spell in such an egregious manner – an older woman with a young boy.”
Don’t know where you get your news, but I see stories about high school and even middle school female teachers hooking up with students in the news every week. The teachers are usually married.
The female transgressors often appear, from anecdotal reports, to receive lighter punishments than male transgressors. It would be interesting to see the data on these matters.
That would be interesting to see, and could indicate some kind of built in bias.
Hg
I see that too.
So interesting, Violetta. I didn’t realize that stuff makes the news on such a regular basis. I certainly haven’t come across it, so glad you highlighted it here.
Goes to prove the point that the behaviour exists across the sexes and predators exist in both.
Narcissists exist in both.
I suspect a lot of the female perps are somatics. They’re actually fairly young, usually 20s or early 30s, some are quite attractive, but they know that to hormonal boys they may seem like sex goddesses, while Hubby may take them for granted or even point out the spare tire or the saddle-bags they’re growing.
Or maybe Hubby has the spare tire.
Thank you for the correction, HG.
There are definitely female sexual predators but I still don’t think it’s equal to men in numbers and I think that’s partly how sex is perceived but also biologically speaking men have the penis which still deprives direct sexual pleasure while being used as a weapon.
Like if a somatic female narc went into porn she’s still the one getting fucked in the arse, getting raped and getting the injuries, it’s not always an even playing field
But she will getting paid far more. Control comes in different forms.
Of course, she should be paid far more having to endure all that madness
But the point is, given she is a narcissist, she is not enduring it is she, it is serving her needs for the attainment of The Prime Aims.
Hg
Quite so. I see them in porn all the time. Their ‘oohhing’ and ‘ahhing’.
Fuck off and do one, I say.
But that’s just me.
That’s an interesting point. I’ve watched 2 narcs date before (a heterosexual couple)… and the man noticeably had the upper hand in the relationship. Gender still plays a large role in who holds more of the power.
Empath007
With the greatest of respect, bollocks it does.
Somehow I feel quite strongly on this point
Physically, an older man could cause ruptures in a young girl. At least one visiting lecture argued that this is what happens in Lolita; the sanitary napkins Humbert buys are for damage, not for menstruation, although he doesn’t take her complaints seriously.
The assumption is an older woman couldn’t do that kind of physical damage to a young boy. On the other hand, Mary Kay Letourneau just died, and she destroyed that boy’s future. He was 12 when the “affair” started, but she had been his 3nd grade teacher when he was 8. How can you get hot for someone you knew as an 8 year old? I don’t care how hot he grew up to be: that’s weird even by my standards, and my standards are lax.
Vi
Total agreement. It’s not just weird its criminal.
As for Lolita. Well that was disturbing. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say the no-mark author wasnt entirely co hiring it up out of his imagination.
Conjuring!
Okay but whether or not it feeds her narcissism she should be paid more because there are more physical risks/safety risks for her. It’s the same reasons why men get paid more for doing gay porn.
@violetta
I agree with you it’s digusting, even if she met him when he was 12 … eewwww! Mate! I would tell that 12 year old to go study their books. It’s not attractive at least not to me. And I’ve had teenaged boys try to chat me up thinking I’m only a few years older than them. no temptation what so ever.
Vi
Oh yeah on female narc som teachers.
There was one where I worked. Good body. Younger than me. Attractive but not devastatingly. beautiful. I liked her actually, mostly because I found her incredibly amusing. But not in a good way.
One day, I’m on a free and she is teaching in one of the Physics labs. A level chemistry. I stood and watched because something she had said made my ears prick up. And it’s to do with maths.
We’ve been talking about maths. In both Chemy and Physics, its funde fucking mental that you can communtate. This is the ability to make whatever function of the equation the one on the left hand side.
Nippers, naturally find it difficult until they learn the rules. There is a short cut and its using the dreaded triangle. Now, I dont even use triangle with the 11 year olds. Wouldnt stand for it. And here is this stupid arse teaching it to the 12s (16/17) Oh we did had a laugh in the staff room. Not that bright.
But it was mate J, who said he was running an after school club and she walks in. In gym gear. Starts bending over, showing off her arse. All the boys are agog. J, who is bi, is watching this going WTAF?
This is our conversation the next day when he told me.
She never.
She did.
She fucking never.
She did.
You remember triangle gate.?
Yup.
Not that smart?.
Nope!
Oh she will go far. Diagnosis? MMS
And that folks is how teaching works!
Well, I am in shock after reading that Mary Kay Letourneau has just died! I hadn’t thought about her in ages until I posted my comment. Now a lot more people are being forced to revisit her egregious act. And that’s what it was in the context of the circumstances.
Both men and women can be seducers and alongside that narcissists. If they are narcissists, the need for control will arise. if it’s put into that context, as HG suggests, as long as they are fulfilling their prime aims it will not matter to them how they are achieving that. Whether it’s raping an underage boy, an older man seducing a teenage girl, a female porn star taking it up the ass or male porn star giving it to her that way.
The need for control, lack of boundaries, sense of entitlement is writ large.
There will also always be victims. The underage boy, the teenage girl, the female porn star doing the job to survive, the male porn star enticed to think that’s all he has to offer in the lucrative world of pornography.
It’s a fascinating topic. And a damning one for some of the people involved.
Hi michelle…i totally agree it can go both ways and with students some will know the teacher will automatically look guilty so they will blackmail.
I had a scenerio very much like yours in highschool except i wasnt dropped but instead the situation faded on its own in that i had a new teacher the next year for that subject and then graduated. I can see how that would really affect you. Those are the early years of adulthood. Shame on that teacher. It sounds like it was below the radar and he didnt cross the line but still enjoyed using students for attention and who knows what was going on in his mind.
I had a teacher in highschool who was similiar. I had a crush on him and he would do things just under the radar. Hed make comments to me or say things in class related to biology and sex and look in my direction. I always thought i imagined it but i was on a trip with him another teacher and some other students which was away from home on a yacht. It was middle of the night and we hiked in the pitch dark on a tiny island. We were studying tidal pools. Another student had the flashlight so my teacher and i were in the dark. I was shocked when he asked if i was afraid of the dark and i said no. I could feel him take my hand fingers entwined. It really startled me. It seems innocent but it had sexual undertones to it. I remember my heart racing and not knowing what to think. I was flustered. He let go of my hand when we were gathered in the group probably not to be seen. He also asked in a round about way another time if i had a boyfriend.
Another time we were doing lung capacity aerobic breathalizer type test and he kept going on about how well i scored and he wasnt surprised bc of how good of shape my body was in.
I remember after the trip being at the airport curious to see what his wife looked liked and sad to see it end. His wife had brown hair in a bun like a librarian and in my mind back then looked cold and detached. I dont remember seeing them hug or kiss. I decided back then she was mean and not a good wife. Now i know much different! I speculate she probably was involved with a possible pedo narc him!
His subtle sexual advances were confusing for a teenage mind. I will never forget the vast emotions i had mostly all due to immaturity and not knowing i was being used indirectly by a teacher who was most likely a narcissist.
I’m confused. Wouldn’t the teacher be the narcissist here? He may be manipulating and coercing her by the sound of it…
Also the fact that he has lieutenants protecting him over this… hmm.
Debra
The cabals that form with narc teachers in school are frightening. It’s way out of control.
The silverback gorilla at the one I taught at had three. Two assistant heads and one deputy.
All of them wouldnt know truth if it came up and bit their arses. Indeed, we used to call the two assistant heads, female, the scissor sisters. God, how we laughed. They were so fucking stupid. Dangerous to be that thick in a Grammar School.
One day, it became abundantly clear, the Senior Management Team were gunning for the Physics department and a report was produced. Well I say report. It came from the prettier of one of the sisters. Drama. No offence, Violetta.
She thought she was being clever. Oh dear.
When you look at a bar chart, jesus christ, and it only has one label on the x axis and the y is only at 1, you have to SERIOUSLY wonder what was going on between her ears.
We all read it. Maths would’ve been pissing themselves. Let alone Chemy. We printed it out and stuck it on our noticeboard.
One day, in a fit of pique, I pulled it down and marked the fucker. And stuck it back up.
This is the SOLE reason teachers leave the profession. Interference from the SMT who are invariably narcs. It is rarely the act of teaching.
I should be Head of Physics. Trouble is with me, I simply wont play the game.
One day, I’m ‘inspecting’ a school with a result to be interviewed as HoD. This is weird and it never happens in any other sector. You pay a visit before interview. Of course I’m asking questions. Tons of them. Results. GCSE, A Level etc. Behaviour. I already knew the results because I’d done e homework. I wanted to see what they said.
At the end of my jaunt, I was told, ‘Oh you do ask a lot of questions dont you?’
What a fucking bellend.
Thank you Michelle for sharing your experience. Very interesting, and also heart-rending (re when you were 12-13).
I had a crush on one of my teachers in high school, when I was 17. I often stayed on at the end of class to ask further questions about the lesson. I am so grateful to him that he never tried to take advantage of it, as I am sure it would have destroyed me.
I agree with you that you can have students showing too much interest in their teacher (I am a teacher too). It does happen, but although about Chloe I did think “she sounds very much like a narcissist here”, I voted “teacher only”, after hesitating with “both”. The thing is, she is only 18, so at an age when most young people feel all-powerful anyway. Also, where I live, mental health professionals refuse to make diagnoses until people reach the age of 18, and 18 still is very young – there is room, or time, for change still.
Although as you stated, advances from students do happen, I also agree that the students are ultimately the victims if the teacher acts on those advances. I believe that there exists an element of seduction that is inherent to the act of teaching, and we should all be made aware of it so as to be careful.
Perhaps I am extra sensitive to this topic because I live in a country (France) where until the 1990’s the intelligentsia supported, if not downright advocated, paedophilia, saying it ‘liberated children from parental control’, and was a ‘way of recognising children’s right to sexual pleasures’, when those adults had only their own pleasure in mind.
One such self-proclaimed paedophile who wrote extensively about his experiences with numerous underage girls and little boys and girls in South-East Asia, without ever being sued for it, is now being sued (this coward has fled to Italy). This is thanks to a book published in January, entitled Consent, in which one of his victims explains she was so sure (at age 14 in 1986) that she had consented to her relationship with that then 50-year-old writer, that she railed against her mother who half-heartedly tried to make her stop seeing him. Of course, it has destroyed this girl’s life well into womanhood.
Here’s a link to a New York Times article if you have time for it (that writer, called Matzneff, most certainly is a narcissist, and he makes me physically sick – I’m talking literally. I wouldn’t shed a tear if the guillotine was brought back only for this guy!):
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/world/europe/gabriel-matzneff-victim-france.html?searchResultPosition=2
What is the answer HG??
That is for you to work out Neha before I tell you.
I voted for both. I am a teacher so I have seen this from both sides. When I was 12, I had a huge crush on a teacher in my school. He loved the attention. He found ways to keep me near him by giving me responsibilities in the after school programs he ran. My mother would get angry waiting in the school parking lot because he’d keep me after longer than he promised. He never did anything physically inappropriate to me, but he definitely singled me out for positive attention. Until a cute blonde girl started chasing him. By the next year, I had put on some weight and this other girl was completely enamored with him. It was like I had ceased to exist. He would forget to invite me to his after school events entirely. He dropped me cold. At such a young age, and not knowing what a narcissist was, this hurt me really deeply. It left me with a lifelong impression that people who care about me will leave when they feel like, which I am still trying to shake in therapy. I’ve been out of high school almost 20 years and this guy still teaches at the school I graduated from.
In my career as a teacher, I have received interest from students as well. The “authorities” would like to have you believe this doesn’t happen, that the young person is always the victim. It is my responsibility as an adult to NOT accept the student’s advances (and I never have), but that is not to say that they don’t happen. All it takes is a scenario like HG described, where the advances meet some need of the teacher (narcissistic fuel, for example, or an answer to sheer loneliness) and the flame meets the powder. That doesn’t make it ethical, but it is something that does happen. The notion that a teenager can be a narcissist attempting to manipulate a teacher is not nearly as far-fetched as people might like to imagine. I am surprised — and yet not — to see that most voters seem to think it’s the teacher who is the narcissist here.
Very well stated and thank you for your interesting contribution. I enjoyed understanding your experiences and both sides of the fence so to speak.
“In my career as a teacher, I have received interest from students as well. The “authorities” would like to have you believe this doesn’t happen, that the young person is always the victim. It is my responsibility as an adult to NOT accept the student’s advances (and I never have), but that is not to say that they don’t happen.“
I would say that even if the student made advances towards the teacher it doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t be victimised if the teacher acted on it.
It’s perfectly normal for teenagers (and even younger) of either sex to fancy older people and seek validation from them (especially those who have problems at home) but it wouldn’t be correct for the older person to exploit that young person’s circumstances whether or not that young person is a narc, normal or empath.
There are some messed up young people who think they are “in control” when they sleep with an older person for a bottle of vodka or packet of cigarettes and that they are exploiting that person for gifts. It’s when they get older, that they realise how vulnerable they actually were and the danger they were putting themselves in.
Even young people just asking me if I could buy them cigarettes because they are underage… the answer is “no!” I don’t think about the background of that person and if they might be smart enough to make their own decisions or that they asked and are bringing it on themselves so they aren’t really a victim. The answer is no. Anyone who tries to find a justification because that young person initiated it, is a creep.