You grow up thinking that childhood is the departure lounge of life, a waiting room and necessary evil you have to endure that is going to transport you to this magical place called adulthood, when real life begins.

What you don’t realise is that once you’ve checked your bags in and left the airport lounge, when you do eventually make it to your wonderful destination, you still have to pick up your bags at the other end.

The securities, insecurities, self-esteem, hang-ups – basically all the baggage you accumulate during childhood – stays with you forever. In the real world, not only aren’t you permitted to leave your luggage unattended, you rarely lose it.

Growing up is frequently an irritating business and not just because people talk about you like you are not there. They paw you, squeeze your cheeks, discuss your gene pool and because you are underage you are not really allowed to have an opinion or to tell them to keep their hands to themselves and lay off.

Even more irritating is the way adults don’t take children seriously. It doesn’t occur to them that children inhabit the same space and world they do. They look upon them as somehow removed, detached from real life, immune to the emotional viruses that plague the rest of us.

If a child says he is depressed, this is dismissed with a scornful laugh because what can a child possibly know about unhappiness? And it’s the same with love – children definitely can’t possess the same length, breadth and depth of feeling that adults do of course. Oh that species are clearly so adept and in touch with that particular emotion, they are even allowed to get married and have children of their own.

The fun really starts when you get to school. This is when you are constantly reminded that your school days are going to be the happiest days of your life and naturally you are not allowed to argue with this little diagnostic prophecy. It’s a fait accompli. It’s even said in a certain tone – like it’s somehow been written and cast in stone long before you were.

We recently marked a 20-year school reunion and I spent the entire time revisiting memories, recalling the way teachers spoke, how they pronounced or mispronounced words, expressions they’d use. Everything was still so clear in my head, right down to their handwriting, the way they flicked their hair back, even the colour of their eye shadow.

I later received an e-mail about one of my contributions from a teacher who taught me at that school. She began her e-mail asking me whether I remembered who she was and then went on to re-introduce herself as the teacher who taught me over 20 years ago at Sacred Heart. Perhaps I am not the best yardstick, because my memory works overtime, but I e-mailed her back, set her straight and reassured her that I remembered her very clearly.

In this particular instance, there was nothing untoward and my memories of her were all good, and yet, her unassuming question made me realise that perhaps teachers underestimate the enormous power they have and the influence they wield over their pupils. And it struck me that perhaps teachers don’t fully appreciate the enormous implications that come with the territory they are privileged to preside over.

Considering that most of childhood is spent at school, at an impressionable age, at a time when we are not entirely equipped to deal with everything that is being thrown our way – from exam pressure to family domestics and our own private life meshed somewhere in between – the last thing children need is to have to battle out a power struggle, forever on tenterhooks wondering whether they’re going to be a punching bag at the receiving end of a teacher’s cruel perverse streak.

A teacher who develops a problem with a student is like a prison guard who has a problem with an inmate. People erroneously believe that chemistry is limited to the bedroom. It’s not. There are always going to be children who will draw a teacher in, and others who will repel him/her. Teachers have to be extra vigilant so as not to let this affect their judgment in the classroom because if it does, the odds are always going to be stacked against the child.

This is not about strict teachers. I have always had the utmost respect for teachers who command respect and enforce discipline, provided of course they don’t instill unnecessary fear in their students, which I believe can seriously stunt and impair the learning process.

Neither is this about giving children a free rein, or promoting and perpetuating a cotton wool culture. This is about serious teacher bullying, which has been in the news recently, which to my mind, is the lowest form of human behaviour.

I am not sure whether Zenna Atkins, ex- chairman of the Office for Standards in Education in the UK, would favour keeping a teacher bully on at school, for the same reasons she favoured keeping useless and incompetent teachers on board. Her argument – a school should prepare you for life and a useless teacher paves the way for all the other incompetents who will doubtlessly be thrown into your path in the course of your life.

I find Atkins’ approach defeatist and obscene for a number of reasons – but I’d rather an incompetent teacher over a sadistic teacher. Teachers are entrusted with the care and education of their pupils, so abusing that trust is criminal. Teachers who persist in personal attacks and vendettas and who are unable to keep their prejudices checked should seek alternative callings better suited to their personalities.

Some things you never quite get over. There are some creases that age can’t ever iron out. If teachers realised the profound effect they have on children, how easily a child’s confidence is shattered; how some children are never able to pick up the pieces, they might rethink a lot of their classroom behaviour.

Teaching is a vocation. Like to heaven many are called but few should be chosen.

michelaspiteri@gmail.com