The Very Worst Teacher I Ever Met

[MineralMan]

We had some extraordinary teachers in the tiny California town where I went to school in the 50s and 60s. Almost all of them took an interest in their students and tried their best to help them maximize their talents and abilities. Almost.

I'm going to tell a story about one teacher who did something no teacher should ever do. I'm not going to name that teacher, though. There would be no point to that.

I was a challenging student. I was always an "A" student, thanks to the genes I got from my parents. I was also a bored student. Because of that, I often did pranks, played tricks, and generally pushed the limits, beginning in the first grade and continuing through all four years of high school. I stayed out of trouble because I got straight As, mostly, and never did anything harmful or malicious.

Most of my teachers, to their credit and professionalism, recognized what was going on with me and challenged me to learn more and learn faster than the curriculum moved. So I did that, too. I read constantly and learned much more on my own than I did at school. It worked out pretty well, really. One very smart high school English teacher, who I also won't name, told me I didn't have to come to her class, and could spend that hour at the library, so I did. All she asked was that I write a short report once a week about what I was studying in the library.

I loved almost all of the teachers I had. Not all, but almost all. There was one, in particular, though, who did something that shocked me at the time. That teacher came up to me at the baccalaureate gathering just before graduation and said, "Richard, you'll never amount to anything. You will always fail in life." That's an exact quote. I could never forget his cruel words. I got an "A" in that teacher's class, too.

When I heard that, I thought about what the teacher said for a second or two, and replied, "So, I'll end up just like you, then?" A cruel response to a cruel thing said to a 17 year old high school senior. But, I was very confident that I would turn out just fine.

Later, I thought about what that teacher said a little more, and realized that it meant nothing, really. What I became was entirely up to me. However, I wondered how many students had heard something similar from a teacher and had it affect them negatively for years afterward. No teacher should ever say something like that to any student. It was a horrible thing to do. I'm still shocked by it.

Almost all of the teachers I had in that small town were outstanding. That is important to say again. Maybe that one bad teacher taught me to roll with the punches. Teachers everywhere have a very tough job to do and are underpaid for that job. It's a miracle that so many are good, dedicated teachers who care about their students.

Kudos to all the excellent teachers out there!

[DonaldsRump]

1. Interesting story

One question: what on earth would have motivated a teacher to say this? It came totally out of the blue. Not that I am trying to find excuses, but for a student like you, this very bad comment seemed to have come out of nowhere.

[MineralMan]

4. That teacher did not like me very much.

The feeling was mutual. He couldn't fault my work in his class, and could do nothing but give me A grades. But, I was inattentive. It was an English class, and I was already proficient. I read all the stuff assigned, wrote all of the essays he assigned, and generally excelled in his class, but I didn't pay much attention in class. Normally, I was reading something else, since I had read everything assigned long before. He was not teaching anything I did not already know, so I checked out during class. Oh, if he tested me by asking a question about what he was saying, I had heard what he was saying. I just wasn't paying attention. I was learning something else.

I did the same in most classes, and most of the teachers knew why. They ignored me at the back of the classroom as I read something and was learning something else during that time. I had to be at school, but was already ahead of most of the other students in whatever the class was about.

Genetics. That's all. Both of my parents were very, very bright people and self-learners. They couldn't afford to send me to some private school where I'd be seriously challenged. So, I went to the small town school that was there, and learned on my own there. Most teachers understood that, as I said. and left me to it. Most would talk with me after class from time to time and ask what I was studying during class. I'd tell them. They'd nod.

[DonaldsRump]

10. Well, MM, you got the last laugh on your English teacher!

As mentioned before, your writing is excellent. I search in vain to find a typo in your posts, but instead, all I find are perfectly constructed, well-reasoned, and interesting points with no errors in sight! I, on the hand, have to edit a single line post several times. I'm grammatically fanatical, but somehow my typing and brain are not very synced.

That's just horrible about this teacher. No teacher should ever say that to a student. It can crush someone. I'm glad you rose above it. It's all the more shocking that you were such a good student and that he could say that.

We live in NorCal, and I have to say I'm very impressed with the public school system here. I used to be a private school snob, but we're really lucky to be here. And I tell my children to treasure their teachers. Without exception, all of their teachers are excellent and have passion for what they do and for their students.

[PatSeg]

11. I was wondering that as well

I'm thinking, he was possibly a bitter underachiever and probably resented any student who didn't have to struggle the way he had. I've known people who go out of their way to try and take down someone who they see as undeservedly successful. And of course like MineralMan also said, the teacher didn't like him. It was really unprofessional to allow that dislike to come out as petty and possibly harmful. Fortunately MM handled it quite well.

[redstatebluegirl]

2. There are people who work with young people in teaching and support that should NEVER be around

young people. I remember an academic advisor I worked with who said, when I asked her why she chose that profession, said "it is better than driving a truck", really????

I am so glad you had the strength to deal with that comment at such a young age, many do not.

[MineralMan]

9. Yes. I realized that people like that teacher also say cruel things

to other students. Some of those others might not be able to process the cruelty and turn it back on the cruel person. That's what made me so angry at that man. It was nothing for me to turn his cruelty back on him. That was easy. But, what of those who were not able to turn it around?

[redstatebluegirl]

32. Those are the ones I worry about.

I am glad you were not one of them.

[MineralMan]

34. Not possible.

I was smarter than he was. He just didn't realize it until then. I almost sent him my first book, but thought better of it. That would have been unnecessarily vindictive.

[wnylib]

58. Something similar happened to me,

but in grade school. I learned to read before I started kindergarten. My father had noticed my interest in what those marks in books meant. So on my little blackboard (the kind that lifted up to store chalk and had an attached seat) he showed me the phonetic sounds of letters with simple words like cat and dog. I applied this to other words and started reading cereal boxes and labels on soup cans, and then read my younger sister's simple story books to her.

By first grade, when we were intoduced to reading in small groups (Dick, Jane, and Sally), my teacher let me skip the group lessons and read whatever I wanted on my own. In the last couple months of school, she let kids bring in simple books that they could read to the class, with occasional help from her. I brought in my older brother's adventure stories. It did not occur to me that I was doing anything special. None of the kids singled me out for teasing about it. It was just fun that we all shared. The teacher was very good at handling it.

Next year, my second grade teacher knew about this (teachers talk about their students). Maybe she did not believe that kids should go at their own rate. For whatever reason, when she assigned us to reading groups at the beginning of the year, she called on me to stand in front of the class and announced to everyone that there would be no favorites in her class. She said she did not like "showoffs." Everyone would read from the same book. She told the class that I was just like everyone else and she would not let me read my own stories.

She could have told me that privately. She could have said nothing, except that I had to leave my own books at home. I remember feeling my face get hot and I desperately wanted to sit down at my desk. After that day, I hid my A papers. I pretended not to understand things in class when called on. I was afraid I might get scolded again in front of everyone by the teacher if I showed the class that I knew the answers. I never told my parents about it because I thought I had done something wrong.

[MineralMan]

60. Horrible!

[wnylib]

64. In retrospect, I think she just did not

want to deal with the challenge of a student who did not fit the mold. Back then (1950s), a couple of our older grade school teachers, like the one I had in second grade, had little to no training for teaching. They started at a time when all they needed was to complete 8th grade or high school, and pass a brief certification course.

I'm guessing that my second grade teacher got her teaching certificate to support herself only because it was one of the few occupations open to women when she was young. The way she made it such a personal attack on me suggests that she was probably not a great student herself as a child. But, of course, I couldn't have known that as a 7 year old, so I cringed every day in her class and enjoyed the freedom to be myself again when I got into third grade.

[Dave in VA]

3. Unlike your experience

I was a so so student. Not a discipline problem. More interested in things outside of school than the lessons they were trying to get me to work on.

Just before graduation, the Senior guidance counselor called me to her office and told me that she had tossed the questionnaire she received from the college I was trying to attend into the "round file." Then proceeded to tell me that I was wasting my parent's money if I spent it on going to college and should just go down the hall to the ROTC office and join up.

I did go to college and graduated Magna Cum Laude. When I was to graduate with my Master of Science degree in Special Education, I made sure that I sent her an invitation.

Don't know why she ever felt the need to do such a thing.

[ProfessorGAC]

5. That's Pretty Bad!

Clearly someone unsuited for their profession.
Good for you on the MS!
My wife was in in-classroom social worker for SpecEd. Co-teacher, too.
She's the one who pushed to sub after I retired.
I don't do SpecEd, though. Because of her, I know the type of person that work takes, and that ain't me!

[MineralMan]

6. That's not a dissimilar situation, actually.

I didn't mind going to school, but that wasn't where I was learning. I was teaching myself, or letting authors of college level texts teach me from their books. I was bored and inattentive, but I demonstrated that I knew what was being taught in the classroom during exams and other ways. My parents encouraged me to learn as much as I could as fast as I could, so that's what I did.

When you got to college, things were more interesting to you. Same for me. There, I was learning from classes, at least some of the time. Like you, as well, I graduated, eventually, with a 4.0 GPA. School was easy for me. Life afterward was the really fun challenge.

[Wicked Blue]

7. Why can't these teachers keep their thoughts to themselves?

I'm sorry for what that idiot teacher said to you, but bravo for your response!

My third grade teacher took a dislike to me because she mistakenly believed my parents were Communists. This was around 1960 during the Cold War. My mother, during a parent-teacher conference, told her that she and my father were refugees from a nation that Russia illegally annexed after WW2. This stupid, ignorant teacher decided that my parents must be Russians, therefore Communists. and therefore I was an 8 year-old Commie Russian. We were neither, of course.

After this, I could do nothing right in that class, even though I usually got A's. She took every opportunity to make fun of me in front of the class, criticize me, diminish my schoolwork. I think she even told the class I was a Russian at some point, but I can't remember clearly.

As a result I became the class "cootie" to be mocked, bullied, spit on etc. This went on through elementary school, junior high and even high school. I was the last one picked when we chose teams. Nobody sat with me at lunch. I withdrew into books. I had almost no friends and nobody asked me to dances or on dates. I spent a lot of time in the woods, sitting on rocks or collecting wildflowers. Never really developed any social skills. Even now, I have no idea how to become friends with people.

That damned vicious teacher left me with lifelong scars.

[MineralMan]

13. Yes, exactly.

I'm so sorry for what happened to you. Such people should never be around children.

The McCarthy era was hard on a lot of people. At that same school I attended, a much beloved teacher of French and Spanish was accused, anonymously, of being a Communist. He was almost fired, based on an unsupported anonymous letter to the School Board.

The School Board had a meeting to decide whether to fire the teacher. I showed up at that meeting, as a 16 year old high school Junior and got on the list to speak. I was beyond angry.

So, my turn came to speak and I marched up and explained that that teacher never spoke of anything political in any class. He taught students to speak French and Spanish, and was very, very good at that job. Then I gave a little lecture about anonymous accusations and asked them what they would do if someone anonymously accused them of being Communists. I went on about the cowardice involved in sending such an anonymous letter of accusation and asked, "Where is the writer of that letter? Is he or she here in this room? If so, let that person come up and explain what evidence they have of their accusation." Of course nobody rose to speak.

I think I talked for about 15 minutes and then sat down. The people at that meeting applauded. The teacher kept his job.

[Wicked Blue]

14. You are AWESOME!

What you did in defense of that teacher was admirable.

[MineralMan]

21. I learned that skill from my father, not from school.

He set the example for demanding fairness from others, and was not bashful about speaking up and speaking out when someone was treated unfairly. I watched him do that many, many times, and it taught me how to stand up and speak my mind in such situations.

That's just one of the many, many lessons I learned from my Dad, who died on January 6 at 96 years of age. He was my best teacher of all. He gets the credit for that one.

[jcgoldie]

8. As a HS teacher for 2 decades...

I really have no idea why anyone would go out of their way to be vindictive toward a young person like that. The only thing useful I can add is that teachers are like anyone else... some are selfish some are lazy some are caring and hard working and professional... they certainly aren't all saints. They also have bad days. It could be that you do get a higher percentage of selfless types just because most of the time you could get a much more lucrative job with a similar level of education so for the most part the very self centered types maybe avoid the profession.

I do think you have a professional duty to do your best for your students if you choose this profession, because you do have other peoples lives and futures in your hands to some extent. But I admit it bothers me when I hear the very common themes in broader society holding teachers to higher standards always vs other occupations. Teachers should always be selfless... like if the teacher really cared they would take more work home, forego benefits, work longer hours, not ask for raises, etc... I don't think I ever hear people say that if a police officer or bank manager really cared about their job they would stay after work everyday, but you do hear that about and even among teachers.

Like I said, the comment you referenced is unconscionable, but teachers are just people with lives that aren't always intricately linked to their job. They shouldn't always be idolized that's my 2 cents.

[MineralMan]

18. I can tell you something else. That small town I grew up in

was about 33% Hispanic. The prejudice against brown people with Spanish-sounding names back in the 50s and 60s there was palpable at all times, even in the schools. I can't even begin to recount all the times I heard teachers belittle Hispanic students publicly. It was endemic.

What happened to me was minor, compared to what my Hispanic friends went through at the hands of many teachers there. However, I had more than enough privilege to be able to turn that teachers cruel comment back on him with an even more sharp rebuke. My Hispanic friends could never do that.

I had no Black friends, because that town did not allow Black people to live there. I can't even imagine what they would have gone through at our school.

Teaching is a wonderful profession. Teachers have opportunities to help enable students to do their best. Many take those opportunities. Some do not. I told a story about one in the second category.

[UpInArms]

12. My home economics teacher in jr high

Gave a sewing assignment ....

What I made was a skirt ... not perfect, but wearable...

She looked at it and said “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Never gave me a grade.

I still “sew.” This week, I repaired my pony’s blanket. Somehow, he had managed to nearly destroy a brand new blanket. I had replaced the one he destroyed last year. With temperatures expected to be down to -15 this week, decided to cobble the two of them together.

I did a fine job. He is blanketed (as well as my two big horses).

Not sure if I am still on the road to hell.

[Wicked Blue]

16. All the interesting people end up in hell

as my late mother used to say. You're in good company, and your home ec teacher sounds extremely weird.

[MineralMan]

19. Ick!

[tavernier]

15. I had a female teacher who said to me,

“You've always got that dull blank stare on your face. I’ve just given up on you.”

At the time I remember thinking that I had been closely concentrating on her lecture because she was known to proceed very quickly with a large amount of material. I hadn’t realized that my face was so disturbing. It was a cruel thing to say to a 15 year old, especially being amongst my peers.

I went on to graduate and eventually went on to nursing school. My patients of 45 years never seemed to mind my dull blank face.

[MineralMan]

24. Another thoughtless, cruel remark.

I'm glad you rose above it and succeeded, despite that. That is your innate strength at work.

[AwakeAtLast]

17. Those types of comments

are usually rooted in jealousy of some kind.

I'm sorry you had to hear that, but glad you didn't take it to heart!

[MineralMan]

35. Yes.

[TheBlackAdder]

20. In one respect she was a good teacher--she taught you what a horrible teacher really was. 😂

[MineralMan]

25. There is that, of course.

[Demsrule86]

22. I taught school for a while and was shocked at some of the teachers who truly disliked some of the

kids. I wondered why they were teachers. I had an english teacher in 10th grade english ...American Lit which I love. I had done poorly the year before because I found grammar so boring. I usually was an 'A' student. Well I think she was one of those teachers who based her opinions on kid's records and the previous year teacher's notes. Much of that class was project based and essays ...not really a facts oriented course which is expected in a literature class.

But when you have a teacher* Mrs X) who has formed an early opinion of your capabilities that makes it really hard to do well. And I didn't do well no matter how hard I worked. My Dad said just enjoy the class and don't worry about the grades or how unfair it is ( I got the life is unfair speech)...parents didn't intervene much during those years. I continued to do all the work while receiving poor grades. The last test...the final is a standardized test that was given to all kids in that class...I actually aced it ...perfect score. As I was leaving the last day...this teacher looked at me and said it was a shame that I had not tried in her class since the exam showed I had promise. I just unloaded.

I told her you judged me based on last year...I worked really hard in your class and if you look at my work now, you might have a different opinion. I finished with I have always love English and I was really looking forward to American Literature...I did enjoy it despite you. But I will hate you until the day I die. You treated my horribly and I question whether you really read papers or examined projects carefully. I think you are a lazy teacher who gave grades based upon your opinions of students. Those you liked got wonderful grades and those you didn't were disappointed no doubt.

She didn't say anything but just looked at me. I expected a call from the principal, but it never came. When I got my report Card, she had given be a 'B' instead of a'D'...there was a simple note on the report card...never forgot it. It said, 'Sorry don't give up on literature'. Later I heard through the grapevine that she was ill and struggling. She left and I never saw her again. When I taught, I had kids sign the back of their papers so I couldn't see who the student was...and tried my damndest to be fair always. And One thing the Mrs. X taught me was to say sorry if I did something I shouldn't have. It was a valuable lesson.

[MineralMan]

26. I suspect a lot of us have been on the receiving end of

someone who let their personal biases affect their teaching. Good for you for speaking up to that teacher. It sounds like you made your point well. You taught her something, and that's a good thing.

[Demsrule86]

31. And despite my dislike of her, she taught me something...she was a very good American literature

teacher in terms of her course and she taught me teachers are not perfect and a 'sorry' can heal the heart.

[Stuart G]

23. I taught for more than 25 years...In High Schools in Chicago..

..After a while, I worked out a grading system based on points. Points for homework, for reading aloud,
points for this and for that..Never, never said anything like that...

...Once, a student was mad at ne in class.....
.She said aloud....Fuck You...& Walked Out..................................


So the next day, the Vice Principal in charge of Discipline, came to see me with the student. The
student apologized and the whole event was over. It was one of many strange experiences I had
in teaching in high school in a large American city.

There are many more, and they will be told from time to time...but not today...

[MineralMan]

27. Students can be very, very trying, I'm sure.

Comes with the territory, I suppose. I've had only a little experience with teaching. Some teaching of Freshman English while I was in graduate school, and some computer classes in the 1980s. It's a difficult profession. A challenge, for sure.

[csziggy]

28. I think some teachers are just frustrated - and I didn't help them at all

My tenth grade English teacher had been a college English professor. When he retire from his college job he took the position teaching high school students since he'd been frustrated by the illiteracy he encountered in his college students. He taught me what I know about writing, even though I have never been good about punctuation.

He and I never really got along. He was offended when I said I thought King Lear was a tragicomedy - so offended he would not listen to my rationale. He once once seriously embarrassed himself when made a pun about me and "paramount" - he meant my two horses, but since I was well developed the class took it the other way. It's not often that a teacher is so embarrassed he turns bright red. He wasn't even mollified that I understood both his original pun and the unintended pun and found both hilarious.

He once told me I should not plan to attend college, that he didn't think I would make it through a degree. He was not the only person in my high school to be surprised when I had the highest SAT scores, way higher than the valedictorian and salutatorian. I'd been bored with school since the fifth grade and while I did all the projects and required work, I didn't put my heart into it.

In the end I was accepted to every college where I applied, finished my degree eventually with a double major in library science and anthropology, and couldn't get a job even though I applied for dozens. I never really used my degree for my chosen profession, but it enriched my life immensely.

Thanks you, Mr. Outlaw for all your work. I'm sorry you were so embarrassed.

[pfitz59]

29. You told my story

Grew up in small town California. Dad was the local Doctor. Mom a teacher turned frustrated housewife. Home library filled with not one, but TWO sets of encyclopedias, Dad's entire medical collection, subscriptions to Nat Geo, Time, Life, JAMA and other mags. Learned to read at 3. Finished class coursework within weeks, not months. I wasn't a trouble-maker. I was the day-dreamer looking out the window or doodling (mostly airplanes, no surprise I became a pilot). The only private school in town was the 7th Day Adventist, and we were Catholic. I couldn't relate to most of my classmates because they were far behind my pace of learning. I had a couple of savvy teachers who kept me loaded with 'special projects' and extra reading. I never had a 'worst' teacher like you experienced, but I did have a couple who questioned my motivation (or lack of). My folks were pre-occupied with their own lives and offered no advice or direction to mine. Sadly, no mentor arose to point the way. i flailed about, but finally gained focus. The American system, with 'age-group' classes and near automatic promotion needs a revamp. Most countries have 'level-tests' which sort and direct students to suitable career-paths. we could use a like system here...

[MineralMan]

30. Really, public schools have no idea what to do with

the kids who are learning way faster than the curriculum. I was lucky, in that most of my teachers recognized the situation and left me alone to learn at my own rate. Like you, I was reading before kindergarten, thanks to my parents. In first grade, the teacher took me aside and said that I could sit by the bookshelf during reading classes and read whatever I wanted in there. That was her way to deal with me, and it sort of became my habit throughout my school days. Most of my teachers followed that pattern, and just ignored me in the back of the room, reading away while they taught the class. In fourth grade arithmetic, I was reading a book about algebra back there. In high school, the book was trigonometry or calculus. From time to time, a teacher would test me on what I was learning on my own. Then, they'd leave me alone again.

Leaving me alone was the best possible thing they could have done. A few teachers had a problem with it, but I managed, by pretending to be attentive, while daydreaming in the back of the class. I always kept a little attention on the teacher, so he or she couldn't catch me out for not listening. After a couple of tries, they usually left me alone, too.

It's really a problem with no solution in a public school setting, especially in smaller schools.

[treestar]

69. "Special Ed" in our state, anyway

included not just learning disabled, but also gifted. So I would think that an IEP could exist on that basis, too. Today's schools may be more on top of it.

I recall some kids skipping grades, too. And flunking. Back in the 1960s, these were possibilities, but it seems today that is not an option.

One new teacher did such a bad job, that her entire first grade class flunked first grade and had to repeat it.

[MineralMan]

70. Gifted Student Programs Work to Some Degree,

but aren't often available except in urban areas. In my small CA town, the school system had three tracks. Basic, General, and College Prep. That should have helped, but so many kids were placed in the wrong track and never found their way into the right one. That was especially true of Hispanic students, who made up a full third of our school. Literally none were in the college prop track. None. Later, a few managed to get moved up into it, based on standardized testing, but that was exceedingly rare.

My parents were offered the opportunity to skip me up a grade in elementary school and turned it down, but that probably wouldn't have helped, since I was three grades ahead already, by then. I was blissfully unaware of any of that, really. I was just doing my thing. Socially, I was doing fine where I was placed, and found ways around the curriculum.

In my current city, St. Paul, MN, there are magnet schools for the exceptionally gifted students. However, you won't find any Black kids in those schools, nor immigrant kids. There is still a lot of room for improvement.

[hunter]

33. I was not a straight "A" student.

If a teacher and I meshed I'd get an easy "A"

Didn't matter how hard the subject was.

If not, I'd get a "C" and an "Unsatisfactory" for behavior and citizenship.

I have a personality disorder.

I'm not stupid. I had the second highest scores of our high school in California State testing. I quit high school.

When I truly didn't get along with a teacher all my classroom assignments became carrion florid clumsy ways of saying "FUCK YOU, TEACHER!"

It wasn't until I'd been kicked out of college twice that I figured out this was bad way to live.

The confrontation with a teacher I most regret was with a college professor who gave me an "F" in his class because the paper I wrote for his final was a carrion florid fat "FUCK YOU!"

Nonetheless it demonstrated I'd been paying attention in class.

About an hour after I got my report card I stormed into his office to protest, we talked a long time, I cried, and he changed my grade to a "B-"

When I asked what he would have done if I hadn't come back to talk he told me he would have left my grade as "FAIL."

About ten years later I was reconnecting with people who'd made a difference in my life and learned he was dead, hit by a car riding his bicycle.

[Lunabell]

36. My worst teacher ever was Mr.Libel of Hillsboro Highschool, Nashville Tennessee.

He used to corner me in the back room. I had to shove my way away from his advances. I was 15. He's probably dead now, good riddance.

[Mr.Bill]

37. Your early school experience mirrors mine.

I got report cards in my early years with As in everything and a D in Conduct.

[Harker]

38. Thanks for the thoughtful post.

The teacher who told me that my final paper in my senior class on ancient and medieval history was too good for me to have written died last year.

I cried a little.

[MineralMan]

42. That happened to me in college with a paper.

I challenged the professor to defend his accusation then and there. He could not. So I submitted it to a scholarly journal. I sent him a copy when it was published. Ha!

[Harker]

48. I tried... a little.

I asked if he'd bothered to check my sources, but it was the last day of school (forever, as I didn't attend college), and he was a stubborn blockhead.

I took my D+ and left in a huff.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

39. That happened to my friend.

An eighth grade teacher said something similar to one of my best friends. She told him not to bother going to college because he would never make it. She lasted one year as a teacher. He retired recently after several decades as a college professor.

[MineralMan]

40. Yup. Easy to believe.

[hurple]

41. I heard that from a few teachers...

And my dad... because I was not interested in the same things he was and did not want to go into the career he had hand-picked just for me.

[MineralMan]

43. All too familiar.

[TNNurse]

44. I had a math teacher senior year.

who said and I quote "If you are going to take much math in that college you are going to, I do not think you will do very well". He was correct of course, I have to relearn some parts of higher math on occasion. I just do not retain it. Just to clarify, he knew me pretty well. It was a small town and my mother was one of his co-workers. I made sure he heard about it years later, that I made it through nursing school and still worked to make sure my math was correct for my work.

[Paladin]

45. I think most of us encountered teachers who should have been anything but teachers.

I struck back at one such teacher with an act of vandalism. Over 50 years later, I still don't regret doing it.

[BobTheSubgenius]

46. It's amazing how little - or quite a bit in a brief amount of time is maybe better - that it takes

to ruin a child's confidence. When I was young, I used to spend some time each summer at this fabulous lake on Vancouver Island with a friend of my mother's. Nearby was a family who had near-identical twins, that may well have been identical, were it not for a big scar on one's forehead.

A double-bit axe clonked her when she got too close behind the chopper. I didn't know much else about either of them because, you know....cooties. But what I did know was that this had happened to her, and I knew about a related incident at school.

Once, when she did poorly at some test, project, or what have you, the teacher told her she'd been stupid ever since her head was cracked so hard with that axe. It absolutely crushed her, and she had no expectation of anything but failure after that.

I have no idea what happened to her or her twin. The last time I saw them, I was about 10, but I've often wondered...and hoped she got someone into her life to build her back up.

[lastlib]

47. My first-grade teacher told my mother something that has become a family joke....

She said I was doing fine in all my subjects, except that I wouldn't color! And when I did color, I wouldn't stay inside the lines, or use normal colors. (She flunked me in coloring.) Accoring to her, I was reading with my age-group, doing arithmetic with my age-group, and understanding science with my age-group. Reality: I was reading my sister's high-school science book (I could name all (then) nine planets, in order, and more kinds of dinosaurs than most people ever know), and doing math out of my brother's sixth-grade math book. With a few exceptions, I didn't work very hard in many of my classes until high school. One high-school English teacher told me I was the best high-school writer she'd ever met; four of my college profs told me similar things. Later in life, our local metropolitan newspaper begged me to come write for them, but I had to turn it down for personal reasons.

Moral: ignore the naysayers, and follow the path you feel best for you. Rise to your own level.

[MineralMan]

52. Exactly!

[Karadeniz]

49. In high school, I went from room to room collecting absentee slips. I was instructed to just slip in

And grab the slip. After months, one day I went into a govt class. The teacher immediately began yelling at me for disturbing the class and especially for not knocking and waiting for permission. I was dumbstruck and just stood there, speechless. I felt like I'd been physically slapped around. I just waited until the rant was over...or maybe he ordered me away. I'm pretty sure I went to a restroom and cried... but I still had my job to finish. I didn't speak of the episode to anyone, not students, the office, no one. The next morning when I went to the office to report in, I was informed that the principal wanted to see me. I honestly couldn't think why! He informed me that some students had told him about the verbal attack, that I'd followed the procedure correctly, that the teacher was way out of line and did I want an apology from him. The last thing I wanted was to be near that teacher again, so I declined. The teacher never apologized on his own.

[lucca18]

50. That teacher was cruel.

Those words were painful to hear.
At a time in our lives when we as students are vulnerable, that can make one lose their self confidence.

After all these years, I still remember a teacher from grade school who was not a very nice person (and I’m retired)!

[Beringia]

51. I remember what a joy it was getting into college and felt like the teachers actually liked you

and had very creative minds themselves. Quite a contrast to grade school and high school where it seemed many had contempt for students.

[MineralMan]

53. Good point.

[meadowlander]

54. The worst teacher I had was in college.

He had tenure and was a research publishing superstar who considered teaching completely beneath him especially at the state university he was at before he moved on to the Ivy League. He used to call us "mouth-breathers" and then complain when nobody spoke in class (where they would inevitably be shot down and humiliated). On the plus side, there were something like twenty classes a semester and he cancelled like eight of ours at the last second, mostly so he could travel on last minute vacations. I learned absolutely nothing in that class.

My worst teacher in primary/secondary was 7th grade drama. I foolishly believed at the time that the purpose of education was to make you a good all-rounder and to shore up the things you're not strong in so I deliberately took a class I suspected I would be terrible at hoping to improve my public speaking skills. Right off the bat, we had to do a solo improv skit one by one in front of the whole class where we pretended to find some money on the sidewalk and had some reaction to it. I just completely froze when I got out there, had no idea what to do, mimed picking something up and then walked off.

A few weeks later, one of the other students that was absent that day did her skit as a make-up and afterwards his comment in front of the whole class was, "It wasn't as bad as [meadowlander's] but that was still pretty weak."

Like who holds on to that for weeks and then goes out of their way to point out publicly what a shitty job the shyest kid in the class did? That asshole still pisses me off.

[MineralMan]

59. What a creep!

[davsand]

55. I repeated a chunk of 2nd grade with my daughter.

I hold a Bachelor's as well as a few different professional certifications. I CHOSE to sit in that classroom because my kid had a teacher that probably needed to be reported to the Dept of Children and Family Services as an abuser. It got to the point my daughter came home from school one day crying. She begged me not to make her go back because she was terrified by her teacher. That day she'd watched that woman drag a kid by his arm in the classroom because he was not in his seat. The fact that he was just returning from the restroom was apparently not acceptable in her mind. There had been other little abuses my daughter had told me about before that last incident, but dragging a kid by a little arm just horrified me beyond my ability to stay quiet.

The back story on this was that my husband I both had spoken to this woman a few times about the fact that our daughter was afraid, and every time we were met with some bullshit reason for it. My personal favorite was the time that she claimed our daughter had AD/HD and needed to be medicated. Something that a lot of people do not know about me, is that I could be teaching, and chose not to do it. I had all the necessary training. I know damn well what an AD/HD kid looks like, and trust me, my kid wasn't there. Her after school care was provided by a Special Ed teacher who took a few years off to have her own family and SHE never spotted anything either...

Anyhow, after that particular incident, I made some calls to my old faculty at the university, and they were in agreement that I either needed to call DCFS, pull her out of that school, or else make sure my kid knew she was safe in her classroom. I took my kid to school that next morning and then met with the administrator behind closed doors.

I outlined his options. Either I called DCFS on this teacher--who was due to retire--or else I was gonna sit in that classroom for the foreseeable future. It was quite the intense discussion but I really didn't give a shit at that point. I was doing advertising/media work for labor unions at that point, and I had all kinds of time to go back to school. So I did.

After the school year ended, I had several parents tell me their kids were much happier with me "observing". Those poor little kids told their parents they felt safer with me there because she was "nicer" when adults were present.

She truly was the worst teacher I've ever seen. Abusing kids is not acceptable.


Laura

[MineralMan]

61. BRAVA!

[byronius]

66. Awesome story.

[liberalhistorian]

56. My parents were both dedicated

teachers for decades and, like most of your teachers, often recognized the issues behind a particular students' behavior and encouraged them/cut slack accordingly. They did have the misfortune of knowing teachers like the one you're describing, and it always pissed them off because they knew the impact such negativity could have on students and how strongly students remembered them. Few things pissed them off more than negative/mean/ineffective teachers.

[MineralMan]

62. They sound great!

[liberalhistorian]

63. They are! My mom has long been retired

and my stepdad died of dementia several years ago. Many of his old students visited him in the nursing home and some told us that they themselves were inspired by him to go into teaching.

[cojoel]

57. I think you can say the name

Your teacher was Mr. Strickland, from Back to the Future.

No McFly ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley!

[byronius]

65. No Dark Sarcasm in the Classroom.

I had a couple of those. And I was very much like you. One does not forget.

It's why this album seized me when it came out.

[Coventina]

67. My worst teacher was in 8th grade: Mrs. Crabtree

I am not afraid to name her, because she deserves it.

She was really cruel, just for cruelty's sake.

I swear I am not making up her name. She wore her hair in a silly, huge beehive. She was not being campy, like the B-52's, either.

She was a monster and I hope she's in hell. There should be a place in hell for teachers who go out of their way to be cruel to students.

[MineralMan]

68. Well, I posted that first on a nostalgia Facebook group for that school.

I did not name the teacher, because some of his children are also in the group. Besides, his name is irrelevant. There are cruel teachers everywhere. A small minority of teachers, but they do a great deal of damage in many cases.

What was interesting in the thread on that nostalgia group was a group of Hispanic former students who wrote about the prejudice and mistreatment at that school, which had roughly 33% of Hispanic students. Many of them were my friends at all grade levels in that small town. I was aware of the prejudice, but many Anglo students were not, and learned of it only in that thread. Some folks got woken up by the posts.

I post frequently there, because I find the discussions interesting. Most of my posts are amusing reflections on the past, but I also mix in a few that are the opposite. Almost all in the group are boomers, really, and the reactions are interesting to both types of thread.

[Zorro]

71. Terrible thing to say

Now imagine your father telling you that. That's what mine did.

It really motivated me, which was probably not his intent.

[MineralMan]

72. Hard for me to imagine, given my own father.

However, I have seen things like that happen in my life. That would be very difficult to overcome, I think. I'm glad you did.

My Dad was very strict and had high expectations, but he guided me in the directions he thought I should go. I sometimes disappointed him, and I knew it. I learned from that, too. But, he never belittled me. Instead, he encouraged me to do better.

[FakeNoose]

73. I don't get why some people are emotional bullies

... they just have to knock you down a peg, and they say mean things like what that teacher said to you. A man like that didn't belong in the teaching profession. He probably failed at something else, and became a teacher instead.

It was a sign of weakness and envy, that he could see you were a better man with a bright future. Luckily you just shrugged it off and went your merry way, but not all 17-year-olds are able to do that.

[treestar]

74. In second grade, we had spelling tests in lists

that progressed from easiest to more difficult and we were able to go at our own pace, and ask to take the test on the list we had reached. I was getting ahead and was the farthest along in these lists in the class.

So at one point the teacher refused to let me take the next test, because this other girl was close enough behind me, to let her catch up so "she could have the glory for awhile."

Decades later, I was reading stuff my mom saved from our school days. The third grade teacher said of me that "something is holding her back."

Now I think it is having been shamed for being ahead, as if that was being selfish to other students, not letting them have their chance to be number one in the class on a subject, because I insisted on learning as much as I could and happened to be able to learn faster than the others did. Like it was something to feel bad about.

I think that was a stupid thing that teacher did. What possible motive could there be for it? Why did she care?

[GaYellowDawg]

75. Everyone's got those stories.

When I was in middle school, I was younger, smarter, and a lot smaller than most of the other boys, and I was viciously picked on. There's always a group of kids that gets bullied, and then there's that one kid that even they bully. I was that kid. The worst thing was that there were teachers who didn't like me because I put on an attitude out of sheer defensiveness. Their response was to join in and take shots at me just about every day to get laughs out of the other kids. There was one teacher who was kind to me and I absolutely worshiped the ground he walked on. He was the only thing that got me through a lot of days. I struggle with self-esteem issues to this day. Emotional wounds to the young leave the worst scars.

Part of my assistantship in my PhD program was supervising student teachers and conferencing with them. I told them all about my experiences and how even the slightest kind word could make a difference in students' lives, and how unkind words could make the same kind of difference in the opposite direction. After I finished my degree, I checked the middle school and those teachers were still there and their semester ended after my graduation date. I went over there and visited each one of them. I told each of them that I now had better academic credentials than they did. That it was my professional opinion that they didn't belong in the classroom, and that as a student teacher supervisor, I would never have allowed them to get past me and into an environment where they could wreak havoc on students' self-images in some of their most important formative years. Each of them tried to play it off like they didn't care, but I could tell that it hit them hard. I really try to avoid hurting people, but there is no telling how much damage that they did to students like me. I was able to work past it, but there have almost certainly been a lot of students who lost faith in themselves, gave up, and accomplished far less than they would have with better teachers. So those teachers deserved some payback.

I teach at a community college, and one thing that my students can absolutely never say is that I have been unkind to them, or that I haven't been their biggest cheerleader in that class. When I get close to the end of my career, I won't have anyone visiting me to say the kinds of things I said to those teachers.