Mrs. Tickle and the Apple Tree - Abusive Teacher's & Their Psychological Impact on Students

Teacher makes student scrub toilets because he's a Catholic and was opted out of Sex Ed.

When I was in the 4th grade, I had a very mean teacher, her name was Mrs. Tickle. Mrs Tickle used to bring me up in front of the class and verbally abuse me about how slow I was when I ran, that I had a heart problem, that I couldn't participate in gym. That year Sex Ed was introduced to our class and I, being the only Catholic in the class, was opted out of the sex class by my Mother. On the first day of Sex Ed, Right before Mrs. Tickle let the rest of the students leave the classroom she pulled me up in front of everyone and said "Since Michael is special he's going to be given a special assignment today."

I sat there quietly waiting for her to make her next move. She peered down her long nose over her horn rimmed glasses and said "Wait here, I'll be back". She left and returned a few moments later with a bucket in her right hand. She placed the bucket on the floor and told me to go pick it up and to follow her. I went struggled to lift the bucket, it was half filled with warm water and scrub brushes floating around. We walked down the hallway and stopped when we came to the girls restroom. She opened the door and made sure all the stalls were empty and then had me come in. She told me that since I was Catholic and my Mom had opted me out of class, I was going to scrub the toilets. I was terrified of her and I did as she asked. She stood there berating me about how bad and evil the Catholic Church is and that my parents were evil for raising me as a Catholic. For four months I endured this abuse, until one day, I told Mom and she flipped out... and stormed down to the Principals office the next day. Mrs. Tickle was quite angry that I had told, but did treat me a little nicer after that.

As the saying goes "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree", two years later I had Mrs. Susan Patton, who was the daughter of Mrs. Tickle, she was my 7th grade History teacher and she was a mean cuss like her mother. I wasn't doing well in her class and one day I was showing off a signed Michael Jordan picture. Mrs. Patton came over and looked at it and offered me a higher grade for the image, I gave it to her and she gave me a D at the end of the class. I couldn't believe that I fell for it.

No worries though, justice comes for us all. In 2006, Mrs. Patton was fired from her teaching job and found guilty of sex abuse with her male students. If I had known this.. I would have winked at her instead of giving her my prized Michael Jordan picture!

Back in my mid 20's, I looked up Mrs. Tickle, I was going to go down and let her know what kind of a negative impact she had on my life. I discovered however that she died of breast cancer a few years earlier.

Here is an article on Mrs. Patton's conviction: http://www.roanoke.com/news/ex-teacher-sentenced-in-student-sex-case/article_7ac3eee6-ef19-5856-9aaf-1edcabead07d.html

And here is her sex offender registry: http://sex-offender.vsp.virginia.gov/sor/offenderDetails.html?regId=20751