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This incident occurred nearly 10 years ago when I was in Year 9, I was 13 years old. To many, this story will not seem particularly traumatic, but I think it must have affected me quite negatively as I still think about it fairly regularly. It's not a huge deal, but it was quite a severe moment of ableism and cruelty coming from a teacher that I would like to tell you about. I hope you won't think I'm being over-dramatic.
At my school, we had PE (which I disliked) and Dance (which I hated with a passion) as separate lessons. Our timetable was fortnightly and every other week I had both subjects on the same day - PE in the morning, and Dance after lunch. After completing the first round of torture, my stump really wasn't feeling up to another hour of strenuous activity, so I got my friend (who had the most grown-up writing) to write me a note to get out of Dance. I got her to write that my stump was hurting - so it wasn't even a lie... it just wasn't from a parent. I showed it to my dance teacher and she said it was fine for me to sit out. During the register, one of the girls in my class saw that I wasn't wearing my dance kit and said - in front of everyone - "But Sophie! You did PE!". My heart sank, the teacher asked if this was true, I said yes, and explained that my stump really hurt from doing PE and that it was difficult and painful for me to do too much in one day. One would think that an adult would have a small grain of empathy for a young teenage girl who is in physical pain - not this one. She shouted at me in front of the whole class, I barely remember what she said but it included "You can't just pick and choose". I just stayed silent and didn't answer back, a huge part of me wishes I'd stood up to her, I've felt ashamed for years for not challenging her, which led to me feeling worse for being annoyed at my younger self - I was only 13! I was a well-behaved kid who never got told off! I wasn't going to answer back after an already excruciating public humiliation. She still let me miss the lesson but I never tried to get out of it again - no matter how much pain I was in*.
This was hugely problematic - Why shouldn't I have been allowed to "pick and choose"? This teacher clearly took it personally that I chose to miss dance over PE, rather than seeing the bigger picture. I had already walked to school, done PE and walked around to go to other lessons (which often involved crossing a large field) and still needed to walk home. What she failed to understand was that if I had done dance as well I might not have been able to walk the next day - and therefore missed five lessons rather than one (and let's face it, I wasn't going to pick it for one of my GCSE options so it was utterly pointless for me to do it anyway). This woman was not an amputee, she had no idea what levels of pain I was experiencing, this is usually where empathy would kick in, but as I mentioned before, I received none. I'd been using a prosthetic for four years by this point, I knew my limitations, I knew not to push myself too far. People question disabled people's bodily autonomy all the time and it needs to stop. They like to act on our behalf and think they know best. We are told it's "mind over matter", to "keep going", and to "push through the pain". I was already doing all of this in order to get to school, I should not have been made to feel bad about my incredibly sensible choices regarding my own body, health, and safety.
At the time I thought I couldn't really complain to anyone about it as I used a fake note! But I'm complaining about it now - I left that school after GCSEs in 2012 so they can't exactly give me a detention, but it's also unlikely the teacher in question will ever get a telling off either. In an ideal world, she would read this and gain some understanding and empathy. She would interrogate her internalised ableism and endeavour not to treat other disabled children the same way. Other than that I don't know what I want, an apology? An argument? I think a mediated discussion where I can tell her my side of the story properly, without the power imbalance of Teacher Vs. Student would be quite useful for both of us
* This might be inaccurate. I can't recall if this was before or after but at one point I managed to get out of Dance (and subsequently Maths as well) by using the natural discolouration in one of my toes to pretend I'd bruised it really badly. The school nurse thought it looked so bad she called my dad to take me home. The fact is, my toe just turns very dark purplish/grey when it's cold.