The epic of the abusive band teacher

[smileyeagle1021]

Makes me happy most of my teachers were pretty good. I had an amazing band director, he was tough and sometimes a bit sarcastic, but he was fair and never went overboard. If he ever made fun of a student it was in such a way that even the student being made fun of thought it was hillarious. My favorite line of his was "smiley, you want that to sound like 'shh...dit'.... right now it sounds like you're missing the 'd'."
That said, I do have two teachers who stand out for the amazingly bad teachers award. I'll start with the less bad one, I would make up a name for him, but then I realize, the name I'd make up for him is the same as his real name He had to be the most depressing person on the planet. I had him twice in high school, once for geometry, once for statistics... and both times I felt the need for prozac after taking his class. He kept a monotone the entire time he was talking and always admitted that he absolutely hated his life and he didn't know why he went on and he made so many mistakes... seriously, I would not be surprised to find out he killed himself.
The really bad teacher though was when I was at the middle school that was having "that time of the month" (people in Reno will isntantly know which school I'm talking about ) and I had a german teacher who I will call Mr. McCreaperson (Renoites will once again probably know who I'm talking about). Every year we'd put on a play for the school, in German... no big deal, they were actually quite fun and a good way to actually apply what we had learned... as it is that there isn't that much of a German community in Reno to practice our language skills with. What was creepy was that for changing into costumes we'd just change backstage (not that unusual), but sometimes we'd catch him watching us... which is just a bit weird. He also seemed to leer at students inappropriately in class... just an all around creepy guy. Fast forward to two years after I've left his class... turns out he was convicted on something like 60 counts of possession of child pornography His hard drive both at home and supposedly at work was practically full of the stuff... all of it... you guessed it, of middle school aged children.

[HorrorFrogPrincess]

My favorite teacher was the one most students hated. Even won Student's Worst Nightmare every year.

Government class. He finally got the AP class when I hit Senior year. TOUGH bastard. But he didn't force his views on the class, and during one project when we were acting as members of Congress, he acted as a Republican whatever-the-head-of-Congress-is since most of the class identified as Democrat (he was a Dem, but thought the exercise would work better if we had a tougher sell). I managed a B and passed my AP test, but that was only 3 credits, and I needed 4 in college for my degree. Ended up taking another Gov class taught by a TERRIBLY boring fellow. One of those chaps who just reads from the book for an hour. I doodled every. Single. Day. Aced it on what I learned in high school.

Sadly, my HS got really low marks in No Child Left Behind, so that teach went to the new magnet school for law and government. Better off there, if you ask me.

[JLRodgers]

To keep my identity somewhat secret ... and a very long story short...

My motivation for band in HS disappeared within two weeks one year with all the crap going on in the band (not teacher related). I can't even remember if I stayed the entire year. Very long story short... person was supposed to hold up a cymbal, insulted me instead, I warned him, next day he had hairline fractures on his hand -- I realized that when I got more pleasure from that than I did band, it was time to move on.


And it all started because I was told I was not good enough for one position in the band -- YET then used to be the "behind the scenes" person for that exact same position because the people doing it sucked that badly.... yeah... motivation leaves real quick.

edit:
Oh, and as a note -- I wasn't trying to hurt the guy intentionally. Our cymbals were known for breaking and falling off the hand holding things, and as we would get knocked down points if we didn't hit the cymbal (or where the cymbal should be), I had to hit the spot where it should have been cymbal being there or not -- he thought he'd be funny and put his hand there (really -- wasn't intentional), so it got hit. Thought I'd clarify. Forgot I removed this part from my original post.

[morgana]

Maggie, I'm so sorry this ass ruined your life's dream for you. What a jerk.

If the band teacher is still in prison, you should write him a letter and ask him how he likes being Bubba's personal "wind instrument".

I'm so glad I'm finally learning not to eat or drink while I'm reading CS. Sheldon, you're a bad, bad person. I think I love you.

[blas]

I was never in any type of band class and I can't play any instruments....

However, we had a band teacher from Hell at my second high school. This guy was just a royal jerk, from what I heard about him.......one of those people that you wonder why they became a teacher because they seemed to hate kids so much....and made you double wonder why they wanted to teach something as enriching and brain challenging as music when he couldn't tolerate anything less than perfection.

He and one of the most beloved teachers at the school were involved in that bus crash I talk about every once in a while. He survived.....and even though I was already graduated and old news at that school....from what I heard after that accident, every year he's gotten softer and softer.

It's just so weird that it takes a huge tragedy and life changing event to turn someone into a halfway decent human being!

[Kheldarson]

Maggie, my brother went through about the same as you. He was a wonder at the clarinet. We started in VA where the teachers loved him. Did really well at competition and everything. Well, we moved to WV end of my junior/end of his freshman year. I made friends with some of the upperclassmen band members as he joined band. Found out the current band director was new as the old one had been arrested on pedophilia charges. Right. Good sign.

I ended up having Mr. D for one class--musical theatre. It sucked. He had no idea how to do a musical. He wanted us to copy directly from movies. We didn't even sing; just lipsynced. Ugh.

Meanwhile, my brother is having difficulties. Turns out Mr. D doesn't believe in competition for seats. So while my bro deserves to have first chair, it keeps going back to the older kids. Well, seniority and all, fine. But when he was the older one...then it went to the popular girls of the clarinet section. Mr. D would rant and yell and everything else at the students as well.

Eventually bro had enough and pulled out. He got the same treatment you did, but it was his senior year and he was sick of his classmates anyway. So I don't think he cared too much. But after another bad year of music classes in college, he pulled out of music entirely.



As for me...I had a couple of bad teachers. My second choir director turned me off from choir entirely for a while (Mrs. C wanted complete perfection from us as middle schoolers and would look the other way when I got teased. All she did when I had gum stuck in my hair was cut it out. Didn't even call my mom. Mom was pissed).

Then there was my drama teacher in ninth grade...unless you were her favorite, she'd ignore your performance entirely during class. In fact, she'd talk through it to her favorites. It sucked.

[Dave1982]

Oh God....the painful memories that this thread is bringing back.

I played clarinet when I was in school. For me, it was a fun side thing, not something that I had any intention of doing professionally. And from grade 5 to grade 8, it was a lot of fun.

Then starting in grade 9, it became a living hell, all of it thanks to Mr. B.

If you've seen Mr. Holland's Opus, you know that the title character never wanted to be a music teacher; he wanted to be a composer, but life got in the way. Early on, no one liked him and he hated his job, but then he had an epiphany and found a way to make it enjoyable for himself and his students.

Well, Mr. B was like Mr. Holland, except he never had that epiphany, and 30+ years of frustration made him into an absolute nightmare. Based on some remarks he made, I think his original goal in life was become the conductor for a major symphony (or maybe a lead player in a major symphony) and that he thought he was that good, but well, obviously he wasn't. And I think deep down, he knew it, and was very bitter because of it.

So, what made this guy such a nightmare?

-He was like a bomb with a faulty, oversensitive fuse, and you could NEVER tell what would set him off. There were days when you could make wisecracks during rehearsals and he'd laugh, and other days when you'd get a vicious and very public ass-chewing for it. Sometimes, both would happen within seconds of each other (one person would make a joke and he'd laugh, and someone else would then say something and get yelled at).

-He could make Seniors cry.

-More than that.....for 3 of the 4 years I was in Concert Band, his own daughter was also in the concert band (she was actually really nice; I think she was deliberately trying to be a counterpoint to her father). At least once, he tore her up one side and down the other in front of the entire band and made HER cry.

-Blatant favoritism. If he happened to like you, you could get away with murder.

-if you signed up for band, orchestra, or chorus freshman year, you didn't know it, but that was a 4 year enlistment in his Boot Camp. He expected you to continue for all four years. If you didn't sign up for the following year, he'd call you into his office and read you the riot act for being a quitter. This despite the fact that if you didn't sign back up, you were no longer his student and he didn't have the authority to do that. He actually reported a girl for truancy because she didn't show up for the first rehearsal my sophomore year....because she hadn't signed up for band that year. Needless to say, that didn't go anywhere, since she wasn't actually skipping class, but the fact that he did it spoke volumes.

-Similarly, you were committed to the same instrument you signed up to play, unless HE wanted you to change it. For instance, if you were an alto sax player, and he wanted to do a piece that needed a soprano sax, then if you were first chair first alto, you became soprano. Sorry.

-But if you wanted to diversify and learn a new instrument, he would not allow it. You were certainly free to pursue it on your own time, but he would not approve you to play it in his groups. My junior year, the Band President (a farcical idea if there ever was one) was a sax player, and wanted to play French Horn in the Orchestra. Even though Mr. B didn't run the orchestra, he refused to allow it (he was the department head). The Band President responded by resigned as President and dropping out of Concert Band. This led to him being called into Mr B's office and being ripped to shreds while the rest of the band was setting up. Mr. B's office was sound-proofed, but he was screaming so loud you could still hear him. And you could see the tears of frustration running down this poor sap's face.

-Awards......a MAJOR bone of contention. The criteria for participation and merit awards in his music department seemed to change at the drop of a hat. My freshman year, every First Chair in Concert Band got an Award, including our one and only bass clarinetist, and the 1st Chair 2nd and 1st Chair 3rd players. OK, fine. WEll, my sophomore year, I was 1st Chair 3rd, and naturally expected an award, since that's how it had been done the year before. I didn't get one, because that year he decided that only the Section Leaders (1st CHair 1st) would get those awards. I asked him about this, and for my trouble was awarded a huge ass-ripping that ended with me hunkering down in the Guidance office. The head guidance counselor ended up having word's with Mr. B, which ended with him screaming at the band as a whole for daring to challenge him.

-Participation awards were another issue. Every single ensemble (marching band, orchestra, chorus, and jazz band) got participation awards (including jackets and varsity letters as upperclassmen), except the Concert Band. This despite the fact that the Concert Band was the flagship ensemble. His reasoning for this was that the other groups required after-school rehearsals whereas Concert Band didn't. That might have been OK, except that 1) I had it in writing that ALL ensembles got these awards, 2) Concert Band had gotten them in years past, 3) the freaking Jazz Band was a joke; half the time people didn't bother to show up and would be yelled at the following day in Concert Band. Plus, at 1 rehearsal a week, the time they put into it paled in comparison to every other group.

I'm sure there's more, but I'm getting upset just thinking about all this. After my last concert my Senior Year, I put away my clarinet and have not taken it out of it's box since 2001. By that time, it had long since stopped being fun, and I had no further motivation to play it. Right now, it's gathering dust in the house somewhere, and it needs to be re-corked and needs a new mouthpiece.

Mr. B retired a couple years after I graduated, but according to my brother (who is now a junior) the echoes of his screams can still be heard in the band room, and the horror stories still circulate.

[Mottom24]

I remember I loved band. I played it all through elementary on the sax. i though it was fun and loved to learn new songs. I was the only kid to memorize what each note was, which was an achievement for me in many ways. i have an underbite though, so i went through reeds like candy.

anyway, when i went to middle school, suddnely we were graded on our voluntary band! My teacher Mr. Gay (yes... that was his name) was terrible. he taught "ok", but he would move the practices around every single week. i kept missing them because I had no idea when the next one would be. he never handed out a paper of all the weeks practices. he would jsut tell you at the end of one, and expect a middle school kid to remember it.

After getting a C, and ruining my chances at honor roll that year, I quit. he was pissed because once I quit... all the sax's quit. I dunno why, I was not really friends with them, but they all vanished when I did.

I kinda miss being able to play an instrument.

[tropicsgoddess]

Holy shit, you weren't kidding when you said that this was epic! I'm glad Mr.J got what he deserved.

[mandaliz8704]

Wow, to use an expression I've seen around here... the pimp hand of Karma strikes again!

The only teacher I can really remember from Middle School was Mr. Russell. He was my Social Studies teacher when I transferred from a private school to a public school (which was terrifying in itself...). We had him for about half the year, he looked amazingly similar to this guy: Mike McShane

Mr. Russell was nice enough in class other than calling a group of about 3 guys that sat across from me "Slackers" and whacking thier desks with a yardstick when they werent paying attention. He never really paid much mind to the girls...we pretty much could do whatever we wanted, as long as we weren't rowdy about it.

About halfway through the year, he...just vanished. Two days later, it hits the papers and the 5 o'clock news that Mr. Russell had been picked up for child pornography featuring (you guessed it) middle school aged boys. He also had a garage full of KKK paraphernalia, Aryan propaganda, and was evidently fighting pitbulls as well.

Other than him, there were a couple band teachers and one math teacher in high school that were let go for "inappropriate" advances towards students. There are some fuckered up teachers in that school district...odd that it's one of (if not THE) wealthiest county in Florida.

[Andara Bledin]

High school music teachers seem to fall into 2 catergories. Awesome Teachers of Epicness or Epic Assholes of Doom.

I've had many, many band teachers and directors, and none of them were assholes, and only one was awesome (and I didn't have him for nearly long enough).

The early ones are lost in the mists of time, but there are three that I clearly remember.

Mr. Roa was the band instructor for all three years of middle school (6-8th grades). He was a vain, self-absorbed little butterball of a teacher, and he had a habit of preening for the parents after concerts and leaving the kids who had to get back inside the classroom waiting outside the door, in the dark, late at night, while he strutted like a peacock. Other than that, however, he was an ok guy. We were reasonably motivated, and he made an effort to instruct us in our chosen instruments.

Then I got to high school, and for my freshman year I had Mr. Horimoto. He was amazing. Under his instruction, the band regularly won the all-around awards in band competitions. We had interesting and complex field shows that were well-suited to the people he had to work with. Unfortunately, some douchebag (who I'm pretty sure I pegged as a guy who wasn't even there the next year) actually keyed his car at the band banquet, and he chose to move to a different school where he wouldn't have to put up with the racist (he was Japanese, if the name didn't tip you off) bs he was getting.

After his departure, we got Mr. Anthony. At first, I thought that was great, since my first month of high school was at a different school, and Mr. Anthony had been the bad instructor there. Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that Mr. Anthony wasn't really all that good a band instructor. In fact, the only reason he was in it at all was because his brother was a very good instructor, and so he got into it because he idolized his brother. But he had this huge hangup against woodwinds. His son played trumpet with the marines, so brass & percussion were the only ones he really cared about.

But I do have to admit that when the district couldn't afford the flute sessional instructor, he did pony up and pay her himself so that we would continue with the advanced instruction.

However, the worst of the suck from him came during my senior year. Because I was one of less than half a dozen seniors that were still left in band (basically, the people who knew that he wasn't very good at it) he killed the 0-period band instruction and had a period during the day for band instruction, since it replaced PE during marching band season. I, being a senior, didn't have a PE period to replace with band, and thus didn't have a band class because he canceled it. (I don't think he wanted to get up that early) So, the end of the year rolls around, and it's time to hand out letters for band, and I'm the only senior female in the band at all. He refuses to give me a letter because I didn't have a class for most of the year. Ass. I only know this because my brother was also in band (horns & percussion) and he actually argued with him over it.

He actually resented my brother's existence, because my brother was the long-haired, stoner, metalhead type that he absolutely couldn't stand. He thought everybody should conform to the marine ideal like his son. But he couldn't afford to do anything to my brother because he knew that my brother was the best horn player in the band (he was a strong player because his original mouthpiece was smaller than it should have been, so he had to work harder to play, which turns out to have been excellent training), and he could play in any of the different band groups, from marching to orchestral to jazz (both horns and drums). So as much as he hated him, he had nobody that could replace him.

I've only had a couple of other crappy teachers, and only one that was actively creepy, and him I could ignore, 'cause I think he wasn't into girls with brains.

And this was in 1993, well before Columbine became a household word and people were even fathoming that somebody could get a gun into a school and kill people with it.

Kids have been killing other kids in school for centuries. It's only more heavily publicized, now.

^-.-^

[sanchopanza65]

I'm sure I had a great band teacher in middle school, but I still hated him. Chalk it up to lingering resentment over him not letting me play drums, because I wasn't good enough. I see why he did it, because everyone wanted to play drums. I got him back though, at least in my pre-teen mind by playing the tuba instead, (an important instument that no one plays), and never practicing.

[Gawdzillers]

My band teacher's normal, if a little strict. My main problem with him is that he keeps telling me to learn to read music. I can read music just fine, in both clefs (I play bass), I just can't sight read, it takes me a minute. Not only that, but for the past two years, he's told me to just improvise a line over the chords. Teach realistically, dude.

[XCashier]

I loved music. Well, I still do, but I don't play anything anymore, largely because of the story I'm going to tell you here.

I'm sorry you gave up music because of that shithole teacher.

It's amazing, isn't it, the difference a teacher can make in a child's life? The best teachers can get a kid to do his/her best, to put forth loads of effort and truly enjoy learning. Teachers like the ones mentioned here, on the other hand, can make a promising child indifferent or even hostile towards learning, and make them give up the things that child is good at and loves dearly. How many potential Mozarts, Einsteins and Edisons have been lost to the world because of horrible teachers?

[greensinestro]

Wow, that's a really horrible person that should not be a teacher ever again. I've known people myself.....hell, I have even had teachers who should have found other careers instead of working with kids.

One lady I worked with at Publix was rude and ugly to everyone (except customers). She hated everyone and the feelings were mutual with her co-workers. Yet, she became a kindergarten teacher of all things!

Or, the third grade teacher I had, Ms P. She often beat the shit out of students that pissed her off. One day, a group of students had misbehaved at lunch, and she beat their butts with a board so hard, each one of them cried and could not sit down. She literally put all of her might into it, hitting these kids as hard as she could. One day, she was making a slide show where she was running the filmstrip and then talking into a tape recorder. Her warning was for everyone to stay quiet or they would be punished. To this day, I still see this scene: The girl next to me dropped a pencil and when that happened, Ms P shut the recorder off angrily, marched over to this student, and beat the living shit out of this girl, all over the face and head several times. After that, she went right back to her recording while this girl put her head down and cried as quietly as she could, scared to death of being beaten again for crying too loud. About twelve years after this, I visited my fourth grade teacher, Ms W, sweet as could be lady, who told me Ms P had gotten married and had happily retired from this same school after more than twenty years of teaching there. I couldn't believe that. This lady obviously had held on to her teaching job for all this time, being this abusive to other students. I had a hard time believing this was the only time she had done something like this. In other cases, I had seen her pull hair, including mine once over chuckling about something. My parents later on pulled me out of her class. It was a rough year.

And finally, my junior year brought forth Mr N, my geometry teacher. He had a family of his own, but it was obvious he hated other kids. His goal, I believed, was to fail as many students as possible being he gave pop quizzes nearly three times a week with tests you couldn't possibly pass. I was in the band, and he hated me because there were times I had to leave class early for the pep rallies. I later found out he had been the drum major at the same high school ten years before. Talk about a hypocrite.

Sorry to hijack this thread, but I think it's a great one where it gives others the opportunity to talk about and expose abusive teachers. And, the band teachers I had her tough, but were well respected by literally everyone.