A wide, cinematic digital painting depicting the oppressive atmosphere of a 2000s public school classroom. Foreground: a row of miserable high-school students sitting at old laminate desks under harsh fluorescent lights, each desk cluttered with handwritten worksheets and dull yellow pencils. Center-left stands a stern, tight-lipped teacher modeled in the spirit of Dolores Umbridge—a Karen-like figure with cropped hair, a stiff posture, and an icy false smile—holding a red pen like a weapon. The classroom walls are lined with faded state-mandated posters, outdated grammar charts, and a large clock ticking loudly above. On the right side of the scene, a faint warm glow emerges from an open book lying on a student’s desk—Our Town—casting soft, nostalgic amber light that contrasts sharply with the cold institutional gray of the room. Dust motes float through the beam of light, suggesting memory, growth, and escape. Mood: tense, oppressive, yet touched by quiet artistic revelation. Painterly realism. No text overlay. Wide cinematic composition.

The public school teacher who declared war on their students

ByTC Marti

One public school teacher whose class I had the misfortune to take hated kids so much, they saw them as guilty-until-proven innocent criminals.

I remember my freshman year of high school. It was the first year that those from my middle school and the other middle school came together. Our middle school was in the northern part of Jefferson County, and theirs, the northwestern part.

When we met to attend high school, we brought stories of old teachers with us. A few of those teachers also made their way to the high school, and one of them was the eighth-grade English/Language Arts teacher from the other middle school. Someone who not a single student spoke highly of.

The rumor was that they would teach the “tech prep” kids, something that made me heave a sigh of relief. I was in the “college prep” classes because, you know, I was stupid enough to fall for the “you need a college degree to succeed” ruse at the time.

I was grateful for not needing to deal with this teacher, until I got my class schedule for the 2006-07 school year. Then bam, their name was on the sheet. Yeah, someone, somewhere, messed something up or heard something wrong. A lot of us think ‘misinformation’ ran rampant with the advent of high-speed internet, but I digress. Especially at my old high school.

I literally met a public school teacher that acted like Dolores Umbridge

I’m sure you all know what a “Karen” is, right? Well, this teacher was a “Karen” prototype, complete with the short-cropped hair, a smile that made your bones chill, and that soft, creepy voice. I wouldn’t say they were “toad-like,” but definitely had a resting bitch face that would make the hairs on the back of even the most hardened brave soul’s neck spike upward.

And talk about “by the book,” and “State-approved.” This one never deviated from the standard script, so you can guess how awful this class was. A lot of reading, and “no need to talk,” if you want the short story. But it got even worse.

They assigned homework that was completely anal. Most of it was writing, which is my obvious strong suit. So the class should’ve been a cakewalk for me, right? Here’s the catch: We weren’t allowed to type anything. “Because how do I know you wrote it?” they would say.

Listen, if you’re an English/Language Arts teacher with nearly 40 years of teaching experience and you can’t tell a sophomore in high school’s writing voice from an adult’s, then what the hell are you doing in a classroom? 

It shouldn’t take you more than a writing sample or two at that point in your career to learn every kid’s writing voice and the word choice patterns they use. I mean, really, was your IQ that freaking low and you were only a salutatorian upon graduation about a thousand years ago because you played the game of school well? I’m willing to say you did.

I knew I was a goner the moment I flunked the first writing assignment

I thought I did a good job, but apparently, this teacher was so anal that they docked you a letter grade if they didn’t like the way your handwriting looked. My ‘g’s are no different from my mother’s if you compared our handwriting, and they didn’t like that. “Learn to write your ‘g’s,” they wrote in a response.

I also remember them docking a girl down a letter grade because her voice cracked during a rather emotional presentation. Then there was the fact they tried to force their religious beliefs onto select students if they said the wrong thing under their breath.

And if you wanted to use the bathroom? You almost had to convince them that you weren’t going to shoot something into your arm or smoke weed in the stall. This one saw nearly every student as a crook unless they were on the “high or highest honors” list. There was definite favoritism played here, and we all knew who the ‘golden girls’ (and very few boys) were.

So yeah, I somehow passed the class with a ‘C,’ and it was by far my worst showing where excessive writing was concerned. Still, it was nowhere near what I expected, especially after a strong freshman year that saw me all but ace the class.

Something good, ironically, came out of that class

Beyond the Lost Horizon by TC MartiMy favorite play is Our Town, and that’s where I first learned of its existence. If you read my 37,000-word dystopian survival novella, Beyond the Lost Horizon, I acknowledge this fact, as Our Town is also my protagonist’s, Quinn Cozens, favorite play.

So, at the absolute least, despite all the times this teacher snapped at us and bored us with endless reading assignments that nobody was interested in, I still got Our Town out of the fray. No, I don’t think I passed a writing assignment when breaking down the play, but Grover’s Corners has always lingered in my mind when I find myself reminiscing too much on and romanticizing the past.

And if I did that in the way most people do, I wouldn’t be writing this blog post, nor would I be writing libertarian-leaning fiction. That might have been the only reason fate made me put up with what was arguably the worst teacher I’d ever had.

But if Beyond the Lost Horizon is successful, then maybe taking a shot during that 2006-07 year would’ve been worth it, to a degree. Check out the book for yourself and decide if it’s a series worth exploring if you’re into dystopian survival, but with a strong theme-driven slant.

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