by

Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, LCSW and Chaya Feuerman, LCSW

Psychotherapists

Dear Readers,

Below is a copy of letter sent to us from a person who suffered during her school years. She sent this letter to her school, but also asked that we publish it anonymously in order to sensitize teachers and school administrators about the many challenges that children often silently endure.

"Dear Principal,

My name is _________ and I was a student at your school from Kindergarten through Elementary School and High School. I am now an accomplished, successful adult, raising my own children. Every year, I receive from the school an invitation to a fundraising dinner in addition to an automated voicemail message encouraging attendance to this dinner and support for the school. I am writing to you because I have carried a lot of pain with me all these years and the time has come for me to share my experience as a student in your school in the hopes that something can be learned to prevent your current and future students from deep suffering in the multitude of ways I did.

From as far back as I can remember, certainly by the 1st Grade, I was a poor student, all the way through High School. I always considered myself the second-to-poorest student in my class. I regularly failed tests and my low level of academic performance was a source of great shame for me.

I remember telling myself at the beginning of each semester 'I will do well this time. I will change. I will learn how to study. I will get good grades'. None of these ever happened. I struggled. I often enlisted my classmates to tutor me before tests and sometimes that helped my grades. They were kind, but not my friends. It was embarrassing for me. Each time I needed help before a test, I would agonize over which fellow student I would ask as I always worried about being a burden to them and most humiliating of all, them possibly refusing to help me, further deepening my shame.

I remember trying to study my notes before tests and reading the same words, phrases and sentences over and over, my focus and concentration non-existent, my eyes glazed and blurred by the nagging grey lumps of confusion and darkness in my brain. My mind was always elsewhere. I simply could not do it. I was trapped in a never ending experience of living in the perpetual daydream of being a good student 'this year' or 'this quarter'. Life as a student was stifling and I was drowning in a sea of negative judgement by my teachers, principals and classmates. From the depths of helplessness and desperation I never gave up hope and made attempt after attempt to reach out to one teacher or another for a lifeline that evaded me, always elusive, always out of reach.

Socially, I was barely tolerated. I could not seem to find a way to be included in the various groups that were called 'cliques' in those days. I just never fit in. It was one denigration after another.

After all 14 agonizing years in school, it was time to finally graduate and be done with the torture of being a student. I was intensely relieved to finally be able to escape the confines of constant negative judgement and disapproval, teachers' unacheivable demands, failed tests and the shame of constant failures wherever I turned. I dreamed of a better life when I would 'get a job and work to support my future husband in Kollel'. That was what I was told I would do, so that was what I planned to do.

I attended Graduation. I pretended to be happy. And I was not given my Jewish Studies Diploma. The very last humiliation I endured at your school.

The effects of the humiliation and shame of this and so many others, lives on, each and every day of my life.I have felt the pain of not receiving my diploma for all of these years. It hurt. It hurt so bad. It still hurts.

All of the above, is simply a backdrop for what really happened. As a student of your school, I was not from the well-to-do families, did not dress like most of the other students and was looked upon as the girl who needed to be 'tolerated' but kept at a distance. I was never accepted and often scorned. Perhaps the mismatched outfits and too-tight shoes were contagious and would spread to other students in the school.

Most significantly, I was ignored - by teachers, principals and fellow students. I was made to feel like damaged goods. Truth to be told, I was damaged goods. I was raised in an extremely abusive home. The abuse was on many levels, including, physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual. Religion ('Torah') was used as a constant weapon to hurt me. I was hit, beaten, slapped, kicked, stepped on, bruised and viciously hurt, both physically and emotionally. It goes without saying that we were also poor.

I lived in constant terror. Fear and anxiety was a part of my daily life. Often, I barely dared to breathe out of fear of what was to come next. (It took years after I was already married, to learn how to breathe properly).

For all those years, I thought I lacked intelligence. All those years, I believed everyone else was smarter than me. All those years, I believed there was something wrong with me. No-one told me otherwise. I did not know that growing up in an environment such as the toxic one I was raised in, had anything to do with my academic performance.

I walked to school in fear. I walked home in fear. Fear was always there. Fear of being mocked by my school mates. Fear of being scolded by teachers. Fear of being lectured by principals. Fear of a phone call to my home by a teacher. Fear of being beaten. Fear of being disgraced. Again and again.

I remember one day, I think it was the 5^th grade, I came to school with purple marks all over my left arm and shoulder. I had been beaten the night before for lying about not having Chumash homework. Reviewing Chumash was a petrifying experience for me. My eyes would well up with tears. I dared not breathe, I never knew if I was going to be hit or screamed at or called hurtful names. I did not know the words in the Chumash. Nor the Navi. I did not know what the words meant. I knew almost nothing. So I lied and said we did not have homework. After my lie was found out at a parent-teacher conference, I was thrown to the floor under the kitchen table and beaten over and over on my left arm and shoulder. After I could no longer tolerate the pain, I tried to shift my body so that the blows would reach another part of me. But they did not stop. My arm and shoulder continued to be beaten. The pain reached a level beyond human tolerance but who knew. It continued.

I came to school the next morning and I had a whimsical plan. I told my one friend what was done to me and I lifted my left sleeve so that she could see the purple marks all over. I wished with all my heart that she would tell her mother who would call the principal, who would report the abuse which would cause the authorities to remove me from my home and place me in foster care. This was my plan. This was my fantasy. I nurtured this fantasy among other morbid fantasies for a long time. I spent my childhood in fear - and yearning for something better.

Of course, none of my dreams came true. I trudged home from school each day not knowing what was in store for me that night. Each morning, I trudged back to school, not knowing in what ways I would be humiliated that day. Would I be begrudgingly picked last for a ball game in the school yard? Would I be mocked for one thing or another at recess? Would my classmates arrange to sit far away from me at lunch because I was not dressed as well as they were or my shoes were way beyond scuffed? Would a teacher reprimand me for not doing my homework? Would I be sent out of class for laughing my nervous laugh that came automatically out of fear and terror? Would I be sent to the Principal's office and suffer more denigration? Or would I simply be ignored that day.

I take the time to write this in an effort to tell the secrets of many of your students. It was a secret then. It is no longer a secret. Not for me. My intent is to convey the clear message to every staff member be it Secretary, Teacher, Principal, Librarian or other.Don't turn a blind eye to the hurt you see in some of your students eyes. Ignoring the pain, pretending it does not exist, is a crime.

I was mistreated, abused and neglected in my home by the adults who were supposed to love and nurture me. I was entirely ignored by the adults in the school who should have protected me, advocated for my safety and security and taken an interest in why I continued to fail and fail and fail. And then done something about it.

It never occurred to anyone in the school that my poor academic performance may have possibly been the result of other causes that did not include a lack of intelligence. It never occurred to anyone that I may need more than just another reprimand for not bringing my pencils to school.

I ask of you the following:

Take a good look at your students. Really look at them. Commit to getting to know them as human beings, not rated or measured in accordance with their grades or popularity. Feel them. Take an interest in them. Love them and nurture them. Show each one of them their self worth. Focus your energies on the girls who are hurting. Do research. Don't turn a blind eye to what is happening at home. Most importantly, don't keep secrets. Find help. It is YOUR responsibility.

Also, please remove my name from your mailing list - the last thing I need right now is an invitation to your annual dinner.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. May you be blessed with insight, understanding and wisdom to do right by every single one of your students now and always.

Sincerely,

A student

Simcha and Chaya Feuerman provide psychotherapy to individuals, couples and families. Their offices are located in Brooklyn and Queens, NY. To contact the Feuermans call 718 793-1376 or email them at [email protected]. Note: Correspondence regarding the articles should be either via email or mailed C/O The Jewish Press.