Awwww come ON! the PTA cut out funding sex ed so now the teachers in all their underpaid everworked generosity have taken on schooling their pet students to make sure they don't miss out on the finer points of the birds and bees curriculum. What's your problem with THAT!?!? And at least she MARRIED the kid. She has ETHICS ya know.
My high school history teacher was accused of having sex with a female student on a school trip to Europe he used to organize every year. His wife was a gym teacher at the same school. Awkward!!!
In pre-school I was force-fed a tunafish sandwich after I'd already thrown up from it once! One teacher sat me on her lap and held my arms down while the other crammed it in my face.
I was just talking about a good teacher I had, he was my social studies teacher for grade 10 and 11. His class was impossible to cheat in. He asked open ended questions, and never had tests that included memorization of dates of wars, etc. they were more the sort of questions like 'how does this conflict relate to that one, who can we compare them to today' etc etc. it was amazing, having a teacher who wanted you to think for yourself.
My kindergarten teacher decided I wasn't going to be left-handed and taped my left arm to my side for almost the whole school year (at least until I was using my right hand regularly.) It wasn't until the end of the year when I said something about it that my parents found out. My dad, being a lefty himself, went ballistic on the teacher. Now, "thanks" to her, I am ambidextrous (write with my right hand, use my left for everything else.)
I actually have two teachers whose wives had affairs with women, thus they got divorced. Poor guys, always liked both of them, too.
I had a teacher yell at me one time because I put my head down during a nude scene in a movie (I just didn't care to see it). She seriously called me out in front of the class for it. I didn't even make a scene, I just quietly lowered my head. Psycho lady!
Bad teacher: my grade 4 teacher was a pedophile! At the time there were whispers he'd put his hand down a girls' top and I was warned never to be alone with him. YRS later I heard on the news that he was arrested and jailed for pedophilia. True story,and chilling! I guess those rumours really WERE true afterall!
atholic school, 8th grade trip to see the Lubert Bell. We were all in a potty break across from the bell, us girls were sitting on a ledge hanging out. We meet a group of fellow field trippers who are boys and take a big group photo. Mrs. Wilkes called us all sluts!! Our patents were outraged and she had to apologize.
In first grade I was sitting by a friend, and wrote the word butt, because that word was hilarious back then. My teacher picked up the paper, looked me dead in the eye, and said "That is a very, very, nasty habit.", and then walked away with the paper. I laughed because my little friend was there, but I was actually ashamed for writing the word butt.
I know a bad story but we seem to have enough. I was a kind if shy 10 yr old, going to a diff school for a year. I was having a tough time adjusting. Anyhoo, we ate in yhe cafeteria, andxwhen u were done, you were to bring your up and feed into the litchen ckeaning area. Si I git uo, wentvto tray area and waited my turn. On way backbto seat, i tapped a girl on the shoulder and handed her her coat, which had fallen in the floor. I sat down and suddenly the principal! put her arm around me and said," I just saw u do two very nice things. You waited your turn to give your tray, and picked up that girls coat. Very nice ". I was blown away, and its 50 years later and I never forgot it. The power of a kind word is awesome and lasting.
Sooo very true. Catching kids (or adults) doing good things and THANKING them is so much more worthwhile thn beating them up physically or emotionally when they do something 'wrong'. Sigh.
Glad you have such a lovely story to share. Way too many Bad Teacher examples.
My fifth grade teacher wanted to hold me back because I was 10 and still played with Barbies. She didn't feel I was mature enough to move to the sixth grade, even though I was testing above grade level in everything by the end of the school year (I improved 4.5 grade levels in reading that year, from 3.4 to 7.9.) She was a major feminist. My mother ripped her a major new one in the Principal's Office.
My sixth grade teacher (at the same school,) Mr. Waller, was completely awesome. Everyone loved him, parents and students. He just managed to make it fun to come to school every day (oh, and he didn't care what I played with, only that I try a little harder in Spanish. Oops.)
Personal story: My father was a HS teacher, and I ended up at his school. From 8th through 11th grade, life was definitely a roller coaster. What made it worse were the persistent whispers of how, if you were a girl, you got a good grade in his class. Seems that my father was a perv - no sugar coating, he was a perv. He was a pencil dropper. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, you're at the lectern gesturing with a pen or pencil, and "ooops..." It drops... and as you bend down to pick it up, you surreptitiously glance at the desks in front of you hoping to catch a quick flash. Kind of a really primitive "up skirt" kind of thing. Well, something like that might could work a time or two ... but when it becomes a regular routine? You become legendary.
My 8th grade Honors English teacher realized I was smart but that I didn't read and comprehend well at all. She worked hard with me every day, having me read x number of pages and then spending probably 1/3 of the class period discussing it with me every single day. Drew me into the story. She did it all discretely. Awesome woman. The book was Centennial. The biggest paperback book of its time! I can't imagine where I'd be without her taking notice and doing something about it.
I may have told this one, but my mom and her sisters went to catholic schools. I think it was middle school, my aunt kept talking I class. A nun took duct tape, wrapped it around her head and onto her mouth as punishment. She had to sit that way for the rest of the day. To get it off, some hair was ripped out of her head.
My grandpa was livid. Being a former boxer, I'm sure he was intimidating. He ripped the principal a new one. Apparently he later said if the nun wasn't a woman, punches would've been thrown.
I always claim I got my BA in BS. I am SURE my biology teacher in freshman year of college gave me a C to get me out of (?his/her? can't recall) hair cuz I sucked SOOOO bad on tests.
Noone knew what ADHD was back then. Test anxiety kept me from getting anywhere in the sciences though I loved it all. Of course that might have had SOMETHING to do with the mean mysogynist math profs in my private high school, not to mention the LIVELY prank my felliw boy students pkayed on me-sticking a dead frog in my oh-so-cool jean bag purse and not telling me til lunch three periods later! I screamed loud enough to crack windows, threw the bag at warp speed across the lunch room, ran screaming and sobbing outside. Obviously never really recovered from the trauma...
But bad/good teachers? My French teacher 4th & 5th grade-Mrs. McPartland? at PS 81 in Riverdale was THE SWEETEST.
And the worst was drunk derelict stinky from smoke lecher and mysogynist Mr. Withie who forced us to resd Perelandra in our junior English class at Rockland Country Day School.
He leered at and drooled over the pretty simpering suburban girls in the class (they all HATED and feared him but were unable/unwilling to stand up to him), and/but/so I fought his foul behavior EVERY DAY. His 'lectures' were boring bombastic ramblings-SUCH a waste of brain cells. I cut most of those classes and fought for a good grade based on papers not attendance.
Got my mom involved after I couldn't take it anymore halfway through the year, and presto chango he was GONE the next year.
Didn't have the best relationship with my mom (stll don't) but I owe her MAJOR thanks for that one!
@Puggle - I can't remember why my parents never did anything about it. If my dad would've known, some people would've ended up 6 ft. under. So I must've only told my mom, and she wasn't in condition to do much about anything at the time.
The duct tape thing is horrible. Thank god that stuff isn't allowed anymore.
Good story: English teacher in high school who also monitored study hall would play movies. Loved Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones!) and also played the Rankin Bass Tolkien films. (VCR--this was the 80s after all.)
Bad story: Another HS English teacher used to brag about having written Behind the Green Door, and was in general very, very smarmy.
My 6th grade teacher hated girl students. Was incredibly mean to me personally. I had a smug satisfaction but then terrible sadness when I heard he went to prison for molesting boys.
My 5th grade teacher just died of brain cancer. He was an outstanding teacher and person. He was fun, hilarious, and caring. He made learning so much fun and never ever lost his temper.
My son's current teacher is a passive-aggressive bully. I can't wait for this school year to finish.
I know, Puggle. *smh* The sad part is that (in my case) it really wasn't that long ago (1976/77) and my teacher couldn't have been more than 35 at the time.
God I hated that woman!
Another "bad" teacher story was my 11th grade AP chemistry teacher. Great guy, made class so much fun, really learned a lot. Anyway, a year after I graduated, he was arrested for molesting the boys his wife tutored after school. YIKES!
I went to Catholic school for grades 1-8. During that time there were many incidents of teachers behaving badly, but the one that scarred me the most occurred in first grade. Our teacher was a nun who was pure evil. And she taught the littlest students, 6 and 7-year-olds. One day a boy I sat next to threw up all over me. It was all over my shirt, down my back. What does this woman of God do when I approach her desk for help? She angrily yells at me to go clean it up, of course. She doesn't even get up, nor does she direct me to the office to get changed. I have to sit there like that till school lets out and then run to the office myself to beg the nurse to call my aunt (whom I lived with) to pick me up. I've had issues with vomit ever since.
A few years later, in fifth grade, my PE teacher made a spectacle of the fact that I had no upper body strength and could not cross the higher set of monkey bars during an obstacle course. He had the entire class line up and watch as he forced me to try, over and over. Each time I fell, sometimes face first, into the sand.
@ Lindzzzz - sounds familiar. I went to Catholic school and struggled with math. I was 9 years old and had to stand in front of the whole class at the chalk board while trying to figure out a problem. The teacher just sat in her chair smirking and saying "Nope. Wrong. Do it again." Took me 20 minutes, and then I got to listen to the kids laugh at me for the rest of the afternoon. I STILL hate math.
@ Lindzzzz - sounds familiar. I went to Catholic school and struggled with math. I was 9 years old and had to stand in front of the whole class at the chalk board while trying to figure out a problem. The teacher just sat in her chair smirking and saying "Nope. Wrong. Do it again." Took me 20 minutes, and then I got to listen to the kids laugh at me for the rest of the afternoon. I STILL hate math.
Our Science teacher told us how spoilt our generation was and how, due to lack of water, he had to drink his own urine while serving in North Africa with the Italian Army in WW2!
My high school French/German teacher was a small, very old German man with a string of numbers tattooed across his forearm. When I was 16, the state took custody of me away from my parents (long story) and sent me to a group home while they searched for a relative to take me in. Every day after class, Mr. Wincent would take me aside, ask me if I was okay or needed anything, and offer me money. I never accepted his money, but I very much appreciated that someone would care about what I was going through (because the system did NOT), and when I moved away to live with an aunt and uncle I very much missed him.
I had a history teacher who was also the football coach, his true calling. We were studying the opening of the West in America. When we got to Custer the teacher said he was a hero. I said the wish to wipe a race of people from the face of the earth was genocide and how was that heroic....I was sent to the principal's office. The principal talked to me and after I told him what I'd said he told me not to worry about it, I was in no trouble. My dad was called to come pick me up. He met the history teacher and had some choice words for the guy, who never called on me again, but I will say I was always graded fairly.
I stood up during nap time in kindergarten and got paddled. None of my teachers ever liked me that much, but I don't think any of them were bad, although a few of the high school ones might have been pervy.
My 6th grade history teacher, Mr. Schalk was teaching us about WWII and told us that The Holocaust was made up and there no such things as concentration camps and it was all hoax for the Jews to garner sympathy. The shocking part is that he was merely suspended for a few weeks and only had to issue an apology. If I recall correctly, he sort of blamed us for getting him suspended and wasn't very sorry at all. He continued to teach and was still there when I went to HS. I knew I couldn't trust a man who was proud of the fact that he didn't own a tv.
Know a high school physics teacher in a small town in Pa who spent decades having sex with his students in the storage room off his classroom. He even won a teacher of the year award, goes to church and Bible study every week. What a perv.
Bad story: high school teacher Mr P. everyone loved him, really cool guy. He got engaged to fellow teacher, miss F. We all thought it was so cool. Mr P always had kids in groups over his house to study and 'rap.' Not me, but others. Cool, right? I graduated before they married and I promptly forgot about them. Few years later, after i was married with children, my father, who worked in the administration building, said Mr P found out to making porno movies with the students!! They worked a deal where he got fired, agreed never to talk about it, and no pension. This was done to protect students from having to testify. Thats what they did then, prob late 70's or early 80's. also, he was free to teach elsewhere. I often wonder where he ended up, creep.
I must be in the minority here - went to Catholic school for 9 years, no problems with the nuns (and never heard of anyone else having problems with them) and in public HS never had problems with the teachers. The only time I really recall a teacher yelling at me was in the 5th grade. A girl said she had to throw up and ran out of the room - Sister Jean Matthew told me to go check on her. I saw red stuff in the toilet, ran back into the classroom and dramatically announced to everyone "Mary is throwing up blood!". Sister ran out of the room and came back about 10 minutes later (with the class all abuzz) and said "Mary had tomato juice for breakfast. Can't you tell the difference between juice and blood?" I think she yelled at me because I scared the crap out of her.
Other than a few rumors in high school about a couple of teachers having an affair, I've got nothing.
I was a goody-two-shoes, so I had good relationships with almost all of my teachers. At my Catholic high school, I had four different nuns as teachers over the years. Three were great and the other we called Sister Satan. This woman hated me. It seems that she picked one person in all of her classes to be awful to and I was the one in that class.
She often yelled at me during class or would ridicule me. She'd point out to everyone when I wouldn't do my homework and then she'd point out when I did, "Oh, Karen finally turned something in!" I dreaded going to that class.
She got in trouble the next year because she accused a girl of stealing a $20 bill (Religion teachers collected money each week for the poor--in other classes it was optional, but in hers it wasn't. And even though she said it was okay to give a bigger bill and then not give for a while, she'd yell if we said that we'd already given before). On this particular day, someone only had a $20 but wanted his/her change back and had to wait until all the money had been collected before change could be given. Sister took the $20 and put it on her desk. When she went back to find it later, it was gone.
She immediately accused the chosen hated one of stealing it--even though the girl had never left her seat and no one else had, either. Sister went through the girl's backpack and made her take off her shoes. Then she made her stay after class and PUT HER FINGER IN THE GIRL'S BRA to try to find the money. Then she took her to the Principal's office because she still thought the girl had taken the money. I know she got in trouble for all of it, but I don't know how much.
Good story: I had a teacher in high school who treated us all as if we were her children (in a good way). Most of us called her mom or Karen (she hated being called Mrs. B_____). She was always available to any of us to talk about anything that was bothering us and made sure that we all had her home number (back before cell phones) and that if we found ourselves drinking or with someone who was drinking and needed a ride to call her at any time of the night. And several students did. She didn't want anything to happen to us (we had already lost a couple students to drunk driving). I stayed in touch with her for years (in fact I need to look her up) and one of my friends ended up marrying her son so I got to attend the wedding. I wish all teachers were like her.
My librarian was a porn star and I had a few teachers that would show up too hung over to teach. Instead if algebra one day we talked about Emilio Estevez because someone saw him walking down the street.
My high school biology took my virginity....and kept having sex with me for two years. Finally, I knocked her up, her husband found out about it, and I was without sex until college.
Wow. Ok then. Explains a little bit about you @Massive G. So very sorry for that. Must have been a very very painful thing to go through. That had to be a real challenge to process. That is CHILD ABUSE pure and simple.
I hope someone showed up to have your back through all of that drama!
Love&light to you. And all the others who were mistreated and abused in school.
I went to catholic school and learned nothing from my teacher in 4th grade because. She disliked some of the other students and gave them a hard time, but not the same level of visible contempt that she had for me because I was a combination all the things she hated most: black, chinese, female and smart.
I didn't have a desk of my own by October; one day I came to school and my desk was gone. She said there wasn't enough space/some other class needed a desk and that I had to share one with one of the black girls in the class.
As the year progressed I didn't get any of the school books that I didn't get in the first two weeks. She told me there weren't enough and I should borrow from one of the other girls.
Early on in the year she was during science she was teaching that evolution wasn't truth and I disagreed, so after that I got sent out of the class whenever it was time for science. And when a student got sent out, since the class was in a portable, you were supposed stay out there by the door, no matter the weather. I would just go to the library and say that I was allowed to have computer time.
There was also an incident I can't recall, but the gist of it was that her teaching of history and social studies was also questionable and that led to me getting banished during those times as well.
Since I was never in class and didn't have any books, I never bothered with any of the homework or projects. Every time there was a test and I aced it anyway she'd keep me in at recess to accuse me of cheating. Once she made me retake a math test and gave me one with algebra on it that probably wasn't meant for 4th grade, but I passed that one too.
My grades were atrocious and the special needs kid in my class got higher grades than me.
I complained to my parents that the teacher hated me, but they figured I was just misbehaving like the report cards said. I got one hell of a whupping after one parent teacher interview, but I have no idea what she told my dad.
I got moved from my sharing my desk with one girl, to the desk of another girl who was sick with something. Turns out she had chicken pox, so I caught that. I got to stay home almost two weeks.
In March, one of the other teachers noticed and talked to the principle. I had to go tell the principle what was going on, and he talked to the teacher I don't know what she told him but they didn't believe me. I told them to go count the number of desks in the class. They didn't go check. Instead they sent to the school board for a shrink to assess my behavioral problems.
I told the guy I wasn't getting out the class for misbehaving, she was sending me out because she hated me but that it didn't matter because I didn't need to learn from her anyway. He gave me a test to make me prove it, then he came back another day with a different test.
As all this is going on, I'm still spending most of my time doing whatever the hell I wanted in the library.
In May the school board guy comes back and has meeting with my parents and the principal and me, and he tells them, So, your kid's a genius, should probably be in gifted classes. There's no way her grades should be that low. And I tell them the teacher's been making everyone's grades up to reflect her crazy racist/sexist backwards worldview.
After this they started looking into everyone's homework and asking the teacher how she came up with the grades.
I don't know what else happened but when September rolled around again, the 4th grade teacher had been fired and I was in gifted classes.
Would you consider writing it for publication-memoir or fiction? So few mixed race authors who tell such a powerful tale.
Girls NEED to hear stories like this. KIDS need stories like this. We ALL need to hear how we who are 'different' and isolated from the herd and punished for asking questions (goddess FORBID!) somehow hang in through the dark times when no one listens to us.
I hope you will consider telling your story. Black Chinese Female-Wow. Good on ya you genius you! What are you doing with your one precious life now, if I may ask.
When I was a tiny tot I went to some sort of daycare or school once a week and they took us on outings. After an outing to the Wren's Nest we were back at the school and I was talking to another tot about the trip. As I spoke, a little spittle came out of my mouth and got her. She immediately ran to the teacher and told her that I had spit on her. No matter how hard I explained to the teacher that it was an accident and that I would never ever do that, she would not believe me. She washed my mouth out with soap. To this day I can still feel that ache in my chest because that teacher did not believe me.
9th grade algebra - I could NOT understand anything in the class, even my older brothers tried to help me at home and I just had this huge brain block.
So one day my elderly algebra teacher came around the room, stopped at my desk and knocked on my head, and said "why are your brothers so smart and you're so dumb!"
I'm now 50, and to this day I could give a shit how x + y = whatever
Grade 3--Mr. Buston. Yelled at the top of his lungs and threw those old, heavy, fibreglass chairs at us. Barely missed. What made it worse is that I'd come home and tell my mom and she'd just kind of shrug it off.
My 2nd grade teacher was so old, she actually met Hitler, and loved him. Yep, my teacher was a Nazi. She was tiny and round, and had small pointed teeth. And a damn Nazi.
One of my 7th grade teachers, who was about 40 years old at the time, wore a deep, lose V-neck sweater one day and kept leaning over so that she was completely exposed. All the 7th grade boys were going stupid crazy, of course. And she totally knew exactly what she was doing. It was a shock to me not only that it happened at all, but that she clearly knowingly was doing it.
In college one of my professors told me she wasn't going to let me make up an exam I missed because she 'didn't think you'd miss five days of school just because your father died.'
My older brother was punched or hit by his gym teacher in junior high and my mother was LIVID. She went to the school to confront him and marched up to him and... melted. He had blue eyes, muscles and a mustache like Tom Selleck and my brother said she simpered like a school girl.
My little brother was about 6 years old when he was hit by a teacher and my dad showed up at school in his work clothes and with a sledge hammer in his hand. The teacher shit a brick and said it was some sort of misunderstanding. We never did find out exactly what happened but my brother got the royal treatment in that class after that.
My best friend is a teacher and she's won a Disney Teacheriffic award twice, getting $15k each time. She always has lots of horror stories about parents and students, parents screaming at her, threatening her, students with preposterous lies and the parents who believe them. Oh, and stories about teachers who try to be the friends of their students, including hanging out/partying with them and sleeping with them.
My 2nd grade student teacher, Ms. Kim. I could tell she cared for me more than everyone else. I got glasses and everyone made fun of me and she told me it was okay but I still cried, the next day she had glasses on! She wore contacts but wore her glasses for me. ill never forget that.
I was in first grade and a teacher made me eat a bologna sandwich she thought I had thrown in the trash. I HATE bologna to this day and don't know what dumb kid threw the sandwich away.
Schools seem to be a Petri dish and an evolutionary tedt lab: Survivor:the school system edition, combined with Darwinian survival of the fittest and some awful pervert breeding farms. Amazing any of us graduate compos mentis. Orrrrr-maybe we don't?
The fact that there are good teachers too-I dunno.
I am really glad now that I don't have kids and that I only had to get my stepson through three years of high school. He is doing awesome by his own talent and wit. 30 years old now and Rockin' the Casbah with a life of travel, writing, photography, DJ'ing, radio station personality & producer in Vienna, Austria, and he even has a serious gf of 2 years.
Got him out of regular high school into an amazing hands-on experiential leadership and lifeskills program his last two years. He never missed one day of school nor was late. Believe me when I say THAT was an epic and miraculous transformational feat in and of itself. When you treat kids with respect and EXPECT something better from them...
He actually saved his outdoor adventure camping group from dying from hypothermia, using some Tibetan self-warming mental skills his dad (Hobbit Hubby) had taught him, during an unexpectedly massive rainstorm.
Skinny longhaired paleskinned dweeb from Canada saved his Mission and Hunters Point SF gangster homies from DEATH. He even wrote a 200 page screenplay about the experience.
He has left me with nothing but pride in his accomplishments though the teen years were RUFF. He had an amazing teacher and mentor in that program.
Good education can do that! And having a smart kid of course.
Mary Kay Letorneau was a pretty bad teacher story.
ReplyDeleteAwwww come ON! the PTA cut out funding sex ed so now the teachers in all their underpaid everworked generosity have taken on schooling their pet students to make sure they don't miss out on the finer points of the birds and bees curriculum. What's your problem with THAT!?!? And at least she MARRIED the kid. She has ETHICS ya know.
DeleteMy high school history teacher was accused of having sex with a female student on a school trip to Europe he used to organize every year. His wife was a gym teacher at the same school. Awkward!!!
ReplyDeleteI had a good teacher that I wanted to be bad with.
ReplyDeleteIn pre-school I was force-fed a tunafish sandwich after I'd already thrown up from it once! One teacher sat me on her lap and held my arms down while the other crammed it in my face.
ReplyDeleteMy preschool teacher made me stop eating the paste. Bitch.
DeleteHoly shit Amber! Licensing would've shut that place down if they knew about it.
DeleteI was just talking about a good teacher I had, he was my social studies teacher for grade 10 and 11. His class was impossible to cheat in. He asked open ended questions, and never had tests that included memorization of dates of wars, etc. they were more the sort of questions like 'how does this conflict relate to that one, who can we compare them to today' etc etc. it was amazing, having a teacher who wanted you to think for yourself.
ReplyDeleteMy kindergarten teacher decided I wasn't going to be left-handed and taped my left arm to my side for almost the whole school year (at least until I was using my right hand regularly.) It wasn't until the end of the year when I said something about it that my parents found out. My dad, being a lefty himself, went ballistic on the teacher. Now, "thanks" to her, I am ambidextrous (write with my right hand, use my left for everything else.)
ReplyDelete@Stew, my aunt was a lefty who was forced to be a righty. It's so strange how that was once a big deal.
DeleteAwful!
DeleteI actually have two teachers whose wives had affairs with women, thus they got divorced. Poor guys, always liked both of them, too.
ReplyDeleteI had a teacher yell at me one time because I put my head down during a nude scene in a movie (I just didn't care to see it). She seriously called me out in front of the class for it. I didn't even make a scene, I just quietly lowered my head. Psycho lady!
Bad teacher: my grade 4 teacher was a pedophile! At the time there were whispers he'd put his hand down a girls' top and I was warned never to be alone with him. YRS later I heard on the news that he was arrested and jailed for pedophilia. True story,and chilling! I guess those rumours really WERE true afterall!
ReplyDeleteatholic school, 8th grade trip to see the Lubert Bell. We were all in a potty break across from the bell, us girls were sitting on a ledge hanging out. We meet a group of fellow field trippers who are boys and take a big group photo. Mrs. Wilkes called us all sluts!! Our patents were outraged and she had to apologize.
ReplyDeleteJeez! Catholic school and Liberty
DeleteIn first grade I was sitting by a friend, and wrote the word butt, because that word was hilarious back then. My teacher picked up the paper, looked me dead in the eye, and said "That is a very, very, nasty habit.", and then walked away with the paper. I laughed because my little friend was there, but I was actually ashamed for writing the word butt.
ReplyDeleteI know a bad story but we seem to have enough. I was a kind if shy 10 yr old, going to a diff school for a year. I was having a tough time adjusting. Anyhoo, we ate in yhe cafeteria, andxwhen u were done, you were to bring your up and feed into the litchen ckeaning area. Si I git uo, wentvto tray area and waited my turn. On way backbto seat, i tapped a girl on the shoulder and handed her her coat, which had fallen in the floor. I sat down and suddenly the principal! put her arm around me and said," I just saw u do two very nice things. You waited your turn to give your tray, and picked up that girls coat. Very nice ". I was blown away, and its 50 years later and I never forgot it. The power of a kind word is awesome and lasting.
ReplyDeleteSooo very true. Catching kids (or adults) doing good things and THANKING them is so much more worthwhile thn beating them up physically or emotionally when they do something 'wrong'. Sigh.
DeleteGlad you have such a lovely story to share. Way too many Bad Teacher examples.
Let the sun shine in!
Holy smokes @pogue - same grade and same rumor at my school. He was a large smelly man. I was shocked when he was arrested - nearly 20 years later.
ReplyDeleteMy third grade teacher threw a hard-cover science book at me. I've always been one to challenge, or at least play devil's advocate.
ReplyDeleteMy fifth grade teacher wanted to hold me back because I was 10 and still played with Barbies. She didn't feel I was mature enough to move to the sixth grade, even though I was testing above grade level in everything by the end of the school year (I improved 4.5 grade levels in reading that year, from 3.4 to 7.9.) She was a major feminist. My mother ripped her a major new one in the Principal's Office.
ReplyDeleteMy sixth grade teacher (at the same school,) Mr. Waller, was completely awesome. Everyone loved him, parents and students. He just managed to make it fun to come to school every day (oh, and he didn't care what I played with, only that I try a little harder in Spanish. Oops.)
Personal story:
ReplyDeleteMy father was a HS teacher, and I ended up at his school. From 8th through 11th grade, life was definitely a roller coaster.
What made it worse were the persistent whispers of how, if you were a girl, you got a good grade in his class.
Seems that my father was a perv - no sugar coating, he was a perv.
He was a pencil dropper.
For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, you're at the lectern gesturing with a pen or pencil, and "ooops..." It drops... and as you bend down to pick it up, you surreptitiously glance at the desks in front of you hoping to catch a quick flash. Kind of a really primitive "up skirt" kind of thing.
Well, something like that might could work a time or two ... but when it becomes a regular routine?
You become legendary.
My 8th grade Honors English teacher realized I was smart but that I didn't read and comprehend well at all. She worked hard with me every day, having me read x number of pages and then spending probably 1/3 of the class period discussing it with me every single day. Drew me into the story. She did it all discretely. Awesome woman. The book was Centennial. The biggest paperback book of its time! I can't imagine where I'd be without her taking notice and doing something about it.
ReplyDeleteI may have told this one, but my mom and her sisters went to catholic schools. I think it was middle school, my aunt kept talking I class. A nun took duct tape, wrapped it around her head and onto her mouth as punishment. She had to sit that way for the rest of the day. To get it off, some hair was ripped out of her head.
ReplyDeleteMy grandpa was livid. Being a former boxer, I'm sure he was intimidating. He ripped the principal a new one. Apparently he later said if the nun wasn't a woman, punches would've been thrown.
I had a teacher that would give you partial credit for a wrong answer, if she deemed it to be "good bullshit".
ReplyDeleteLOL-what a nice teacher. LUCKY YOU!
DeleteI always claim I got my BA in BS. I am SURE my biology teacher in freshman year of college gave me a C to get me out of (?his/her? can't recall) hair cuz I sucked SOOOO bad on tests.
Noone knew what ADHD was back then. Test anxiety kept me from getting anywhere in the sciences though I loved it all. Of course that might have had SOMETHING to do with the mean mysogynist math profs in my private high school, not to mention the LIVELY prank my felliw boy students pkayed on me-sticking a dead frog in my oh-so-cool jean bag purse and not telling me til lunch three periods later! I screamed loud enough to crack windows, threw the bag at warp speed across the lunch room, ran screaming and sobbing outside. Obviously never really recovered from the trauma...
But bad/good teachers? My French teacher 4th & 5th grade-Mrs. McPartland? at PS 81 in Riverdale was THE SWEETEST.
And the worst was drunk derelict stinky from smoke lecher and mysogynist Mr. Withie who forced us to resd Perelandra in our junior English class at Rockland Country Day School.
He leered at and drooled over the pretty simpering suburban girls in the class (they all HATED and feared him but were unable/unwilling to stand up to him), and/but/so I fought his foul behavior EVERY DAY. His 'lectures' were boring bombastic ramblings-SUCH a waste of brain cells. I cut most of those classes and fought for a good grade based on papers not attendance.
Got my mom involved after I couldn't take it anymore halfway through the year, and presto chango he was GONE the next year.
Didn't have the best relationship with my mom (stll don't) but I owe her MAJOR thanks for that one!
@Puggle - I can't remember why my parents never did anything about it. If my dad would've known, some people would've ended up 6 ft. under. So I must've only told my mom, and she wasn't in condition to do much about anything at the time.
ReplyDeleteThe duct tape thing is horrible. Thank god that stuff isn't allowed anymore.
Good story: English teacher in high school who also monitored study hall would play movies. Loved Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones!) and also played the Rankin Bass Tolkien films. (VCR--this was the 80s after all.)
ReplyDeleteBad story: Another HS English teacher used to brag about having written Behind the Green Door, and was in general very, very smarmy.
My 6th grade teacher hated girl students. Was incredibly mean to me personally. I had a smug satisfaction but then terrible sadness when I heard he went to prison for molesting boys.
ReplyDeleteMy 5th grade teacher just died of brain cancer. He was an outstanding teacher and person. He was fun, hilarious, and caring. He made learning so much fun and never ever lost his temper.
My son's current teacher is a passive-aggressive bully. I can't wait for this school year to finish.
I know, Puggle. *smh* The sad part is that (in my case) it really wasn't that long ago (1976/77) and my teacher couldn't have been more than 35 at the time.
ReplyDeleteGod I hated that woman!
Another "bad" teacher story was my 11th grade AP chemistry teacher. Great guy, made class so much fun, really learned a lot. Anyway, a year after I graduated, he was arrested for molesting the boys his wife tutored after school. YIKES!
@Lisa: What an awesome teacher!
ReplyDeleteone one who hit a teacher with a chair once. He got suspended.
ReplyDeleteI went to Catholic school for grades 1-8. During that time there were many incidents of teachers behaving badly, but the one that scarred me the most occurred in first grade. Our teacher was a nun who was pure evil. And she taught the littlest students, 6 and 7-year-olds. One day a boy I sat next to threw up all over me. It was all over my shirt, down my back. What does this woman of God do when I approach her desk for help? She angrily yells at me to go clean it up, of course. She doesn't even get up, nor does she direct me to the office to get changed. I have to sit there like that till school lets out and then run to the office myself to beg the nurse to call my aunt (whom I lived with) to pick me up. I've had issues with vomit ever since.
ReplyDeleteA few years later, in fifth grade, my PE teacher made a spectacle of the fact that I had no upper body strength and could not cross the higher set of monkey bars during an obstacle course. He had the entire class line up and watch as he forced me to try, over and over. Each time I fell, sometimes face first, into the sand.
Good times.
@ Lindzzzz - sounds familiar. I went to Catholic school and struggled with math. I was 9 years old and had to stand in front of the whole class at the chalk board while trying to figure out a problem. The teacher just sat in her chair smirking and saying "Nope. Wrong. Do it again." Took me 20 minutes, and then I got to listen to the kids laugh at me for the rest of the afternoon. I STILL hate math.
Delete@ Lindzzzz - sounds familiar. I went to Catholic school and struggled with math. I was 9 years old and had to stand in front of the whole class at the chalk board while trying to figure out a problem. The teacher just sat in her chair smirking and saying "Nope. Wrong. Do it again." Took me 20 minutes, and then I got to listen to the kids laugh at me for the rest of the afternoon. I STILL hate math.
DeleteOur Science teacher told us how spoilt our generation was and how, due to lack of water, he had to drink his own urine while serving in North Africa with the Italian Army in WW2!
ReplyDeleteMy high school French/German teacher was a small, very old German man with a string of numbers tattooed across his forearm.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 16, the state took custody of me away from my parents (long story) and sent me to a group home while they searched for a relative to take me in. Every day after class, Mr. Wincent would take me aside, ask me if I was okay or needed anything, and offer me money.
I never accepted his money, but I very much appreciated that someone would care about what I was going through (because the system did NOT), and when I moved away to live with an aunt and uncle I very much missed him.
Beautiful story and god bless him
DeleteI had a history teacher who was also the football coach, his true calling. We were studying the opening of the West in America. When we got to Custer the teacher said he was a hero. I said the wish to wipe a race of people from the face of the earth was genocide and how was that heroic....I was sent to the principal's office. The principal talked to me and after I told him what I'd said he told me not to worry about it, I was in no trouble. My dad was called to come pick me up. He met the history teacher and had some choice words for the guy, who never called on me again, but I will say I was always graded fairly.
ReplyDeleteMy history teacher/soccer coach seems to have come from the same genetic strain: pure arsehole.
DeleteI stood up during nap time in kindergarten and got paddled. None of my teachers ever liked me that much, but I don't think any of them were bad, although a few of the high school ones might have been pervy.
ReplyDeleteElissa, thank you for the heartwarming story.
ReplyDeleteMy 6th grade history teacher, Mr. Schalk was teaching us about WWII and told us that The Holocaust was made up and there no such things as concentration camps and it was all hoax for the Jews to garner sympathy. The shocking part is that he was merely suspended for a few weeks and only had to issue an apology. If I recall correctly, he sort of blamed us for getting him suspended and wasn't very sorry at all. He continued to teach and was still there when I went to HS. I knew I couldn't trust a man who was proud of the fact that he didn't own a tv.
ReplyDeleteKnow a high school physics teacher in a small town in Pa who spent decades having sex with his students in the storage room off his classroom. He even won a teacher of the year award, goes to church and Bible study every week. What a perv.
ReplyDeleteBad story: high school teacher Mr P. everyone loved him, really cool guy. He got engaged to fellow teacher, miss F. We all thought it was so cool. Mr P always had kids in groups over his house to study and 'rap.' Not me, but others. Cool, right? I graduated before they married and I promptly forgot about them. Few years later, after i was married with children, my father, who worked in the administration building, said Mr P found out to making porno movies with the students!! They worked a deal where he got fired, agreed never to talk about it, and no pension. This was done to protect students from having to testify. Thats what they did then, prob late 70's or early 80's. also, he was free to teach elsewhere. I often wonder where he ended up, creep.
ReplyDeleteI must be in the minority here - went to Catholic school for 9 years, no problems with the nuns (and never heard of anyone else having problems with them) and in public HS never had problems with the teachers. The only time I really recall a teacher yelling at me was in the 5th grade. A girl said she had to throw up and ran out of the room - Sister Jean Matthew told me to go check on her. I saw red stuff in the toilet, ran back into the classroom and dramatically announced to everyone "Mary is throwing up blood!". Sister ran out of the room and came back about 10 minutes later (with the class all abuzz) and said "Mary had tomato juice for breakfast. Can't you tell the difference between juice and blood?" I think she yelled at me because I scared the crap out of her.
ReplyDeleteOther than a few rumors in high school about a couple of teachers having an affair, I've got nothing.
And a pox on all teachers who victimized small children in a cruel fashion, and big hug to all so victimized.
ReplyDeleteI was a goody-two-shoes, so I had good relationships with almost all of my teachers. At my Catholic high school, I had four different nuns as teachers over the years. Three were great and the other we called Sister Satan. This woman hated me. It seems that she picked one person in all of her classes to be awful to and I was the one in that class.
ReplyDeleteShe often yelled at me during class or would ridicule me. She'd point out to everyone when I wouldn't do my homework and then she'd point out when I did, "Oh, Karen finally turned something in!" I dreaded going to that class.
She got in trouble the next year because she accused a girl of stealing a $20 bill (Religion teachers collected money each week for the poor--in other classes it was optional, but in hers it wasn't. And even though she said it was okay to give a bigger bill and then not give for a while, she'd yell if we said that we'd already given before). On this particular day, someone only had a $20 but wanted his/her change back and had to wait until all the money had been collected before change could be given. Sister took the $20 and put it on her desk. When she went back to find it later, it was gone.
She immediately accused the chosen hated one of stealing it--even though the girl had never left her seat and no one else had, either. Sister went through the girl's backpack and made her take off her shoes. Then she made her stay after class and PUT HER FINGER IN THE GIRL'S BRA to try to find the money. Then she took her to the Principal's office because she still thought the girl had taken the money. I know she got in trouble for all of it, but I don't know how much.
Good story: I had a teacher in high school who treated us all as if we were her children (in a good way). Most of us called her mom or Karen (she hated being called Mrs. B_____). She was always available to any of us to talk about anything that was bothering us and made sure that we all had her home number (back before cell phones) and that if we found ourselves drinking or with someone who was drinking and needed a ride to call her at any time of the night. And several students did. She didn't want anything to happen to us (we had already lost a couple students to drunk driving). I stayed in touch with her for years (in fact I need to look her up) and one of my friends ended up marrying her son so I got to attend the wedding. I wish all teachers were like her.
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ReplyDeleteMy librarian was a porn star and I had a few teachers that would show up too hung over to teach. Instead if algebra one day we talked about Emilio Estevez because someone saw him walking down the street.
ReplyDeleteMy high school biology took my virginity....and kept having sex with me for two years. Finally, I knocked her up, her husband found out about it, and I was without sex until college.
ReplyDeleteWow. Ok then. Explains a little bit about you @Massive G. So very sorry for that. Must have been a very very painful thing to go through. That had to be a real challenge to process. That is CHILD ABUSE pure and simple.
DeleteI hope someone showed up to have your back through all of that drama!
Love&light to you. And all the others who were mistreated and abused in school.
I went to catholic school and learned nothing from my teacher in 4th grade because. She disliked some of the other students and gave them a hard time, but not the same level of visible contempt that she had for me because I was a combination all the things she hated most: black, chinese, female and smart.
ReplyDeleteI didn't have a desk of my own by October; one day I came to school and my desk was gone. She said there wasn't enough space/some other class needed a desk and that I had to share one with one of the black girls in the class.
As the year progressed I didn't get any of the school books that I didn't get in the first two weeks. She told me there weren't enough and I should borrow from one of the other girls.
Early on in the year she was during science she was teaching that evolution wasn't truth and I disagreed, so after that I got sent out of the class whenever it was time for science. And when a student got sent out, since the class was in a portable, you were supposed stay out there by the door, no matter the weather. I would just go to the library and say that I was allowed to have computer time.
There was also an incident I can't recall, but the gist of it was that her teaching of history and social studies was also questionable and that led to me getting banished during those times as well.
Since I was never in class and didn't have any books, I never bothered with any of the homework or projects. Every time there was a test and I aced it anyway she'd keep me in at recess to accuse me of cheating. Once she made me retake a math test and gave me one with algebra on it that probably wasn't meant for 4th grade, but I passed that one too.
My grades were atrocious and the special needs kid in my class got higher grades than me.
I complained to my parents that the teacher hated me, but they figured I was just misbehaving like the report cards said. I got one hell of a whupping after one parent teacher interview, but I have no idea what she told my dad.
I got moved from my sharing my desk with one girl, to the desk of another girl who was sick with something. Turns out she had chicken pox, so I caught that. I got to stay home almost two weeks.
In March, one of the other teachers noticed and talked to the principle. I had to go tell the principle what was going on, and he talked to the teacher I don't know what she told him but they didn't believe me. I told them to go count the number of desks in the class. They didn't go check. Instead they sent to the school board for a shrink to assess my behavioral problems.
I told the guy I wasn't getting out the class for misbehaving, she was sending me out because she hated me but that it didn't matter because I didn't need to learn from her anyway. He gave me a test to make me prove it, then he came back another day with a different test.
As all this is going on, I'm still spending most of my time doing whatever the hell I wanted in the library.
In May the school board guy comes back and has meeting with my parents and the principal and me, and he tells them, So, your kid's a genius, should probably be in gifted classes. There's no way her grades should be that low. And I tell them the teacher's been making everyone's grades up to reflect her crazy racist/sexist backwards worldview.
After this they started looking into everyone's homework and asking the teacher how she came up with the grades.
I don't know what else happened but when September rolled around again, the 4th grade teacher had been fired and I was in gifted classes.
Wowzer! You ROCK! what a sad but gorgeous story.
DeleteWould you consider writing it for publication-memoir or fiction? So few mixed race authors who tell such a powerful tale.
Girls NEED to hear stories like this. KIDS need stories like this. We ALL need to hear how we who are 'different' and isolated from the herd and punished for asking questions (goddess FORBID!) somehow hang in through the dark times when no one listens to us.
I hope you will consider telling your story. Black Chinese Female-Wow. Good on ya you genius you! What are you doing with your one precious life now, if I may ask.
When I was a tiny tot I went to some sort of daycare or school once a week and they took us on outings. After an outing to the Wren's Nest we were back at the school and I was talking to another tot about the trip. As I spoke, a little spittle came out of my mouth and got her. She immediately ran to the teacher and told her that I had spit on her. No matter how hard I explained to the teacher that it was an accident and that I would never ever do that, she would not believe me. She washed my mouth out with soap. To this day I can still feel that ache in my chest because that teacher did not believe me.
ReplyDelete9th grade algebra - I could NOT understand anything in the class, even my older brothers tried to help me at home and I just had this huge brain block.
ReplyDeleteSo one day my elderly algebra teacher came around the room, stopped at my desk and knocked on my head, and said "why are your brothers so smart and you're so dumb!"
I'm now 50, and to this day I could give a shit how x + y = whatever
Grade 3--Mr. Buston. Yelled at the top of his lungs and threw those old, heavy, fibreglass chairs at us. Barely missed. What made it worse is that I'd come home and tell my mom and she'd just kind of shrug it off.
ReplyDeleteI have spoken to so many people who had drunk geometry teachers. What is it with geometry teachers? Mine reeked of scotch at 8am!
ReplyDeleteMy 2nd grade teacher was so old, she actually met Hitler, and loved him. Yep, my teacher was a Nazi. She was tiny and round, and had small pointed teeth. And a damn Nazi.
ReplyDeleteOne of my 7th grade teachers, who was about 40 years old at the time, wore a deep, lose V-neck sweater one day and kept leaning over so that she was completely exposed. All the 7th grade boys were going stupid crazy, of course. And she totally knew exactly what she was doing. It was a shock to me not only that it happened at all, but that she clearly knowingly was doing it.
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ReplyDeleteI was a very good college professor and private singing teacher. :)
ReplyDeleteIn college one of my professors told me she wasn't going to let me make up an exam I missed because she 'didn't think you'd miss five days of school just because your father died.'
ReplyDeleteThis was a week before Christmas.
My older brother was punched or hit by his gym teacher in junior high and my mother was LIVID. She went to the school to confront him and marched up to him and... melted. He had blue eyes, muscles and a mustache like Tom Selleck and my brother said she simpered like a school girl.
ReplyDeleteMy little brother was about 6 years old when he was hit by a teacher and my dad showed up at school in his work clothes and with a sledge hammer in his hand. The teacher shit a brick and said it was some sort of misunderstanding. We never did find out exactly what happened but my brother got the royal treatment in that class after that.
My best friend is a teacher and she's won a Disney Teacheriffic award twice, getting $15k each time. She always has lots of horror stories about parents and students, parents screaming at her, threatening her, students with preposterous lies and the parents who believe them. Oh, and stories about teachers who try to be the friends of their students, including hanging out/partying with them and sleeping with them.
I was taught by the Sisters of Notre Dame and was blessed with the greatest teachers. They all had compassion, patience,and above all else, humour.
ReplyDeleteAnd niw we know why you turned out so well!! You are my other CDAN crush. So funny!!
DeleteMy 2nd grade student teacher, Ms. Kim. I could tell she cared for me more than everyone else. I got glasses and everyone made fun of me and she told me it was okay but I still cried, the next day she had glasses on! She wore contacts but wore her glasses for me. ill never forget that.
ReplyDeleteI was in first grade and a teacher made me eat a bologna sandwich she thought I had thrown in the trash. I HATE bologna to this day and don't know what dumb kid threw the sandwich away.
ReplyDelete@Jenn
ReplyDeleteYour post made me laugh! It reminded of the Japanese WWII soldier who washed ashore in Oregon and became a celebrity.
Schools seem to be a Petri dish and an evolutionary tedt lab: Survivor:the school system edition, combined with Darwinian survival of the fittest and some awful pervert breeding farms. Amazing any of us graduate compos mentis. Orrrrr-maybe we don't?
ReplyDeleteThe fact that there are good teachers too-I dunno.
I am really glad now that I don't have kids and that I only had to get my stepson through three years of high school. He is doing awesome by his own talent and wit. 30 years old now and Rockin' the Casbah with a life of travel, writing, photography, DJ'ing, radio station personality & producer in Vienna, Austria, and he even has a serious gf of 2 years.
Got him out of regular high school into an amazing hands-on experiential leadership and lifeskills program his last two years. He never missed one day of school nor was late. Believe me when I say THAT was an epic and miraculous transformational feat in and of itself. When you treat kids with respect and EXPECT something better from them...
He actually saved his outdoor adventure camping group from dying from hypothermia, using some Tibetan self-warming mental skills his dad (Hobbit Hubby) had taught him, during an unexpectedly massive rainstorm.
Skinny longhaired paleskinned dweeb from Canada saved his Mission and Hunters Point SF gangster homies from DEATH. He even wrote a 200 page screenplay about the experience.
He has left me with nothing but pride in his accomplishments though the teen years were RUFF. He had an amazing teacher and mentor in that program.
Good education can do that! And having a smart kid of course.