Saachi Gupta
Throughout school, I was every English teacher’s favourite. There was Charlotte miss, my fourth grade English teacher, who would greet me fondly years after she’d stopped teaching me. In sixth grade, there was Banu miss, who passionately praised my literature test answers to the entire class. Aliza miss only taught me for a few months but told the class that my essay was “brilliant.” In my final years at school, I found a parental figure in Shalini miss. After classes, I’d sidle up to her with vague questions about the upcoming test and essays I’d written. There were many essays. Descriptive essays about my favourite place in the world, argumentative essays about schools not allowing mobile phones, narrative essays about the most embarrassing moment of my life. “One day, I look forward to seeing your writing published,” she would always tell me.
There was another thing I often went up to Shalini miss with—my woes about my best friend, with whom I was in love (though I did not know this yet). “She wouldn’t talk to me today,” I would grumble, or, “I hate those people she hangs out with.” On days when I was particularly sulky, Shalini miss would automatically know it was something to do with this best friend. Sometimes, she’d find me alone in a classroom with tears streaming down my face and comfort me like a parent. Sometimes, she’d even spend her long break with me.
Until a few years ago, I thought I was alone in this experience of finding a haven in my English teacher. Then, I began to see the memes. “If you were your English teacher’s favourite student, you’re gay now,” a tweet from 2020 read. “Being gay is a choice,” said another, “your English teacher chooses to make you their favourite and you descend into homosexuality.” On Twitter, the now inactive @qket_archive documented anecdotes and memes about queer youth’s formative experiences with their English teachers. Even pop star Troye Sivan shared one of these memes on his Instagram story, adding a “thanks Mrs Fisher.” He also mentioned his teacher in a 2023 interview: “I had an inspiring English teacher, Mrs Fisher, at Carmel School in Perth. She saw something in me I didn’t see in myself. She was a fabulous, friendly person who encouraged individuality in her students and in me.”