My niece's 4th grade teacher

[Pagan]

I just remembered another "winner" that I had.

I decided to take an international business class seeing as that would fit in nicely with my Fashion Merch classes. I went to one lecture. Left that class and immediately went and dropped it. And I told them why I was dropping it.

It wasn't so much an international business class as a "bash the US" class. Everything he said was geared to how the US is always, always the bad guy. Hey, dude, I don't know if you noticed, but, you're in the US!

I have no idea if he's still there or not. I'm guessing not since I graduated in '94 and this was a few years before that.

[MrsEclipse]

Anyone ever been through the public school system with an invisible yet severe disability? Don't tell me I haven't suffered because I'm a white suburban girl. It's frustrating being treated like you're less than human, or that you're just a bad person who isn't trying. I had a lot of bad teachers and a lot of clueless teachers. My mom was a real mother bear, though, and she never let anybody walk all over me. To this day I have a strict no-bullshit policy when it comes to being treated like a human being.


My absolute, ABSOLUTE favorite one came from twelfth grade. My English teacher was the Supreme Mega Bitch of the Universe. I know God wants me to love and forgive my enemies, but when it comes to women like her it's just so friggin' hard. It's easier to until I forget what I'm so angry about. Hurray for concussions!

See, she went to Paris over Spring Break. And Germany. And did she mention she saw the Eiffel Tower? Oh, yes, and it was so wonderful. We had reports that were to be due on the day after spring break. They were oral presentations, and interactive- we had to bring in a lot of stuff to make our point. I brought in my stuff come Monday, and she wasn't there. I didn't bring it Tuesday because it was valuable and I didn't want to haul it around until I knew what was up.

My report was late because of not wanting to bring my gear to and from school every day until she got back (did she mention she was in PARIS?). She said, "I'll accept it a day late, but I'll have to dock you twenty points. That's one letter grade."

"Um, no," I said, "that's two letter grades.

"No," she said. "One hundred points is an A and 80 is a B. So one hundred points is a letter grade."

Not even my father, a CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANT could teach basic arithmetic to her. No one could convince her that 99-20=79, which is an A to a C. Thank heaven she was an English teacher.

Generally she was a monster, but that one is just too hilarious to repress!

[EricKei]

The teacher picked up a chair and threw it across the room nearly hitting my son with it he then tells the class that he can smack students if he wanted to do so.

...No, he can't, unless the long-standing BAN on that only applies to public schools...(probably best not discussed here)

I did have a public school teacher (a coach, natch) who did try to paddle me once...AFTER this ban was in place. I got out of it by avoiding him and playing dumb, refusing to "assume the position", so to speak, until, he got tired of it and let me go. I don't even remember what it was for, so chances are I didn't deserve it . I am SO glad that school got shut down by the Board of Health a few years after that.

[Misanthropical]

EricKei, my children go to public school, so no, this man does not have the right to hit any child.

We meet with all my son's teachers a couple of times during the school year, because of my big guy's disability (no, not the wheel chair that was from an accident this summer) and this man is the only one who has not shown up at them.

[MaggieTheCat]

Well, here's a story about my own sucky teacher. Actually, more like a sucky guidance counselor.

When I was in middle school (maybe 6th or 7th grade), toward the end of the year, I signed up to be some kind of tutor or mentor to younger students (I don't remember exactly what the program was about, but it was something along those lines.) Everyone who signed up was supposed to take a day-long "class" to learn about being a mentor. I'm pretty sure it involved going on a field trip of some sort to do outdoor activities together.

This all was happening in the spring, and I used to get really bad hayfever in the spring. I still do sometimes, but it's not nearly as bad now as when I was younger.

So, the day of the class comes and I have a horrible hayfever attack. Bad enough that my eyes were swollen almost shut and I couldn't see. No way I was going to make it to normal classes, let alone an all day outdoor activity course, where the pollen would be even worse. So my mom calls in for me and tells the school I'm not going to make it in.

She got a call back from the guidance counselor who was running the program, who told my mom that hayfever was not an acceptable excuse to miss the program and that I had obviously only signed up for the program so that I could skip a day of school. She also said I shouldn't bother signing up for the program next year. Which I didn't have any plans on doing anyway. I felt terrible about it, and my eyes really WERE swollen shut after that because I was crying so hard about it.

[Pagan]

She said, "I'll accept it a day late, but I'll have to dock you twenty points. That's one letter grade."

"Um, no," I said, "that's two letter grades.

"No," she said. "One hundred points is an A and 80 is a B. So one hundred points is a letter grade."

Not even my father, a CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANT could teach basic arithmetic to her. No one could convince her that 99-20=79, which is an A to a C.

I have to confess, I don't get how that's two letter grades either. Was the assignment not worth 100 and if it was, was there no way of earning 100?

[Null Requiem]

I have to confess, I don't get how that's two letter grades either. Was the assignment not worth 100 and if it was, was there no way of earning 100?

100 -> 80 is the anomaly. At any other letter up to an F, it would drop you two letter grades.

[elsporko]

I had a professor who was such a perv to the point where when we were watching scenes from the movie version of A Midsummer Night's Dream (no time to watch the whole thing) we couldn't watch a scene I wanted to see but did have time to watch a sex scene without any lines.

[Pagan]

100 -> 80 is the anomaly. At any other letter up to an F, it would drop you two letter grades.

Ah, yes, but it is possible!

[Ben_Who]

Something about a bad teacher story that brings out all the bad teacher stories. I've never seen a messageboard thread about bad teachers that didn't go on for pages.

My own prizewinner was Ms. Johnson. If my desk wasn't organized enough, she would dump it out on my feet, shouting "Piggy, piggy!" to the whole class. My mother had a real love-feast for disciplinarian teachers and thought Ms. Johnson walked on water. I quickly decided that as long as I was going to school, no one was on my side. I did not do well.

Some teachers see their careers as a continuation of their own time in high school, when they were The Popular Kids. So they'll try to get in good with the students they see as The Popular Kids, up to and including grade inflation, and joining the fun when it comes to kicking down The Unpopular Kids.

Then there was the college professor of mine, whose entire office looked like my desk in Ms Johnson's class, who lost a 90-page paper I wrote and admitted to my face that he was going to blame me for it and give me a zero anyway. After all, even if I came to him with a duplicate, now it was "late." And who was anyone going to believe - a slacker student with a ponytail, or an associate professor on the tenure track?

I put the paper back together - and handed it in to my counselor, who was also the head of the English department, and who heard allll about it. That professor is no longer working for the University. So much for tenure track.

Love, Who?

[cawaker]

I am going to be one of Those kinds of parents. I just know it.

First of all, the smile thing. That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard, and if I found out someone was trying to do that to my kid, I think I'd encourage her to give every kid in her class a five to refuse to smile. And then I'd pull out my wallet.

And the eating out of the trash can thing? Hahahahahahahah...yeah. There would be flashing red lights, flashing blue lights, and film at eleven.

As God is my witness and judge, I hated school.

Yeah I'm gonna be the exact same way, I still have a huge chip on my shoulder from my school days. My kids teachers wont get away with shit around me.

[protege]

Remembered a few more things...

For my high school 'world cultures' class, I had to deal with Mr. Supra. Supra was an anal-retentive bastard who insisted on labeling everything. For example, the first test of the year was "T1," quizzes were "Q's" etc. Annoying as hell, and he would actually remove points if the label wasn't right. Then he'd wonder why students would toss pudding lids at him in the cafeteria...

Of course, my few years of public school wouldn't have been complete without mentioning the principal of the elementary school, Mr. Cook. He too, was a bastard. Because I didn't fit into his 1930s ideal of what a student should be like, he decided to make things difficult, since I "was an idiot, that would never amount to anything." Needless to say, my father was *furious* when he heard that.

In fact, during my kindergarten year, he actually asked about computer literacy, and other tech programs. Mr. Cook not only had no idea what he was asking, and mumbled something about how "we got burned on home-ec, so we're not buying computers." Er, did I mention that was about 1982?

[Misanthropical]

Anyone ever been through the public school system with an invisible yet severe disability? Don't tell me I haven't suffered because I'm a white suburban girl. It's frustrating being treated like you're less than human, or that you're just a bad person who isn't trying. I had a lot of bad teachers and a lot of clueless teachers. My mom was a real mother bear, though, and she never let anybody walk all over me. To this day I have a strict no-bullshit policy when it comes to being treated like a human being.

Both of my sons have a severe but invisible disability and I have torn teachers new assholes when my big guy was in elementary school and about 6 or 7 years old. They knew about his disability and told me they could handle it. His teacher announced it to the class and allowed him to be picked on and joined in sometimes.

He once got blamed for something another kid did (the kid owned up to it later) and was sent to the principal's office, he calmly walked out of class and to the principal's office. As soon as he got there, she drags him by his arm into her office and starts screaming in his face. He starts crying and shaking with fear, while she continues to scream in his face. He finally crawled under the couch in her office to get away from her, because she scared him that bad. This was all relayed to me by a person who worked in the school office, but didn't want to be identified.

It seemed the principal was well known for grabbing children by the arm and screaming in their faces.

The principal called me and told me to pick my son up, because he wouldn't come out from under the couch. I told her it was impossible, since we only had one car and my husband took it to work. She said she would find a way to get him home.

I walk outside a bit later and a police car pulls up and two burly cops get out, look me over in disbelief and asked if I could handle him, since it took both of them to get him in the car and I'm a small person. Yes, the big guy has always been the big guy. I told them I'm his mother and I can handle my own son.

When he saw the cops coming towards him at school he thought he was going to be arrested and never see me again.

When they let my son out of the car he had wet himself from fear and was shaking uncontrollably. He ran right to me and grabbed on to me for dear life till the police left.


I called the school LIVID! I asked the principal what she was thinking to have the police come out to take my son home. She told me she was afraid he would jump out of a taxi. I set up a meeting with her and the teacher, which they would later regret having.

The principal, counselor and teacher tried to use intimidation tactics on me, because they were taller and bigger than me and wanted me to agree with everything they said and wanted to do. They all were in my personal space trying to get me to do what they wanted. You can guess how that turned out.

I was such a force to be reckoned with that the principal would hide if she thought I was coming to the school. New people hired in the office that I had never met before knew me on sight. They did what ever it took to make sure I wouldn't have to come up there.

After the incident with the police, my big guy was terrified of them and would hide behind me if a police car drove by. He hid behind our couch when I put my security uniform on because he was that afraid of badges and uniforms. He thought the police went out arresting children when ever they could.

He is 16 now and still stiffens up when a police car drives by.

I have and will go all "Mama Bear" on anyone who messes with one of my cubs. I will rip a person to shreds and have them think I'm the devil incarnate. Of course, I don't always side with my children, but if I think my children are being mistreated I will bring down the Wrath of God.

[Hyena Dandy]

The first rule, albeit weird, actually reminds me of a teambuilding exercise. In Field Training, we had to do everything the same. It wasn't for some diabolical reason; it was that, when we started doing things the same way, or in a case like this when someone wasn't following the rules-the equal punishment of the group motivated us to help the other person do it right.

And that's the thing. You get the "If one kid messes up they all stay behind" a lot more from people who had previous jobs that taught them that. Its a common method in the army, and in other places where teamwork is important, so that they're all willing to work together as a unit. Places where if you're not working as a team, things don't get done. So people understand that if THEY mess up they bring EVERYONE down with them. But school students don't HAVE that. The school should teach kids to 'play well with others' but being GOOD with people and being an insular team are VERY different things. In fact my school environment was very competitive. I had teachers who would give rewards to the highest scoring grade. How does that encourage teamwork? If you're going to give a message, it should go out to EVERYONE.

The other times teachers do that is when they've been taught to, but they're taught to for a very different situation. When a kid is acting out, but it always happens when your back is turned, then you can threaten to keep them all behind for a while even if you think you know who it is. That way they get the message that honesty is important, and if they act out, they won't get away with it.

It doesn't work if someone is visibly doing something, and you ask them SPECIFICALLY to stop. That way its a case of trying to get the other kids to excise them from the group.



@Misanthropical: I have a wikipedia like policy on assuming good faith, but I honestly have no CLUE why anyone in the education field would think that behavior like that is a good idea, especially with young children. You shouldn't have just complained, you should have tried to get her license revoked.

[MergedLoki]

I don't understand how some people (i.e. the people these stories are about) go into the teaching field.

Like I myself am NOT a big kid fan (I dont freak on them or anything if they're being well... kids :P i just dont tend to LIKE being around them that much)

guess what? i'm NOT a teacher b/c i'd be horrible at it.

I mean if you don't like kids and dont enjoy guiding young minds/passing on knowledge. find a new job...

ANYTHING.

flip a burger, twirl around a pole a few times, sell shit out of a van on a highway offramp. just dont screw up kids minds :P