Speaking Up

The bell quickly shakes, and classes change. I drag my feet as I quickly shift my head over to the front of the classroom I see that my teacher is still absent. Before she turned her head to the classroom, chalk screeched across the board as she wrote out Ms.E. When I was in middle school, my teachers were often out of school so we had a lot of substitute teachers. The substitute teachers were often rude or they thought they knew everything. I often spoke up telling what we were supposed to be doing and they wouldn’t listen to me. Or I was sent to the office for being rude when I was only voicing both my opinion and saying what we did normally.

The teacher starts off by greeting the class and then she tells everyone  “sit down, remain quiet”, and demands that we ask her nothing. Meaning she didn’t want us to ask to go to the bathroom, to go get water, or even ask for help. We were expected to be silent. As she spoke aloud to the class she rolled her eyes, claps her hands and raised her voice. Everyone is in complete shock and can’t believe that she has talked to us so rudely. One of the students quickly stood up and responded “ You're only a sub, so don’t tell us what to do, were allowed to talk in this class. Also the project we are working on is a group project so you should shut up.” Then another student spoke aloud saying “We didn’t ask you to be here.” Shortly after that the room was surrounded in laughter. The sub was now furious.

The substitute stood in front of the class responding “I don’t care about your project or you as a whole. Everyone is expected to be quiet this period and that's that.” She had then wrote on the board “Principal offices” in big letters as if it was supposed to shake the classroom but it had only made it worse. After she had said her briefing speech , I turned back around and continued my conversation. I was talking to my group about the project that we had due tomorrow. The sub had ran toward my desk and thrown her hands on the desk quickly. She then scowled “Whats going on? Who's talking and why are they talking?” So I quickly had responded “We are doing what we are supposed to do , and getting work done.” The teacher had been annoyed with how I responded so she quickly wrote my name in big letters on the board.

I figured regardless of who was in front of the class, if an assignment is given you should do that assignment during that class period. Before I could argue my point I had been sent to the principal's office once again for “talking back” when in reality I was doing what I believed was the right thing to do. However the principal wasn’t trying to hear my side of the story and he was upset that I had been sent to his office.

He asked me to go apologize, and I simply refused. When you are being perceived as rude and you don’t think you’re being rude it can be very frustrating because maybe that’s just how you talk or react to things. If you're accused of being rude when you were trying to speak up it seems like someone is trying to shut you out or shut your voice out of the loop. In this situation I felt like the narrator in the story being stripped of the first amendment just as she was or at least how she had felt. Gloria Anzaldua states “Attacks one’s form of expression with the intent to censor are a violation of the First Amendment” , I felt like I was being censored and couldn't voice my opinion. If I wasn’t censored I would be able to speak on things and not get attacked for it.

However sometimes even if you’re right , you will still be accused of being wrong. It’s all about people  misunderstanding people verbally, physically and mentally. When people don’t understand you they will accuse you of trying to be negative , when in reality you may be trying to be positive and things just come out wrong. People often misunderstand people because they might not know them well enough so they judge or quickly assume based off of body language or tone in someone's voice.  That can make someone who is trying to do good , want to do bad cause they will think since people accuse me I might as well act or do what they expect of me or accuse me of doing anyways. For example it states in the text “How To Tame A Wild Tongue” on page 53, “ I remember being sent to the corner of the classroom for “talking back” to the Anglo teacher when all I was trying to do was tell her to pronounce my name.” She had been accused of talking back when she just wanted the respect of having her name being pronounced properly. Since she spoke up she was in trouble and I believe situations like this make you want to be negative when you tried being positive.