Most of us probably prefer to remember the good teachers – the ones who encouraged us, who taught us something new, or who were there for us when the other adults in our lives were letting us down. These 15 people have, uh, different sorts of memories when it comes to school, and their experiences will likely make you appreciate the excellent educators in your life even more.
#15. Her ridiculous rule.
“My 1st grade teacher was a miserable woman. Her classroom used to be an administrative office or something, so it had a restroom inside of it, but she would punish any kid who had to use it when it wasn’t “bathroom break time” by keeping you in over a recess.
Needless to say, there were several kids (including me) who had accidents because we were afraid to ask to use the bathroom unless it was a scheduled break. If I remember correctly several parents got the truth out of their kids as to why they were peeing themselves and they went to the principal and forced her to change her ridiculous rule.”
#14. A year or two from retirement.
“8th grade Social Studies teacher. She was probably a year or two from retirement and was either going senile or had just stopped giving a shit.
She sent me to the principals office for “disrespect” when I corrected her after she said that Argentina was a country in eastern Europe. Apparently telling her that half my family was from there and having lived there for 6 years I was 100% sure it was in South America was disrespectful.
She took marks off a report I wrote for “racism” because I wrote that Mandela was one of the most influential black leaders in modern history. On the side she wrote that the correct term was “African American”. I got given detention for arguing that Mandela was in no way American.
First essay of the year she gave me a 0 because I wrote using British English (colour, socialise, etc). My mum’s Scottish and an English Lit teacher so she’d taught me grammar that way from an early age. That one I actually complained about to another teacher and he was able to help me get the grade corrected. I wrote in British grammar for the rest of the year just to annoy her.”
#13. Completely lost his cool.
“Film professor in college. We had to produce a garbage mini series that was a blatant rip off of Heroes. Everyone got an opportunity to direct and edit their episode, and everyone knew how bad the script was. My peer had a scene with a ghost like entity talking to the actors…. he puts in the Pokémon Gastly (as a joke). Everyone laughs a bit, and I’m trying to contain myself. The professor sees this as a blatant sign of disrespect and decides to make me the example. Not only was he screaming in my face, but punching and kicking my desk. Just completely lost his cool.”
#12. She still teaches to this day.
“I don’t know if she was the worst, but I had a prof in university that I just loathed. She always taught as if everything she said was fact, and when I asked questions about things that didn’t make sense she’d get frustrated with me for not understanding her fucked up way of explaining things.
She gave ridiculously hard tests that were so terribly designed that you’d have to analyze each question for 5 minutes to get what she was trying to say, then you’d still get it wrong.
All assignment rubrics were purposefully vague (even when you’d ask for clarification) so she could take marks off for anything and try to justify it. She once took like 15% off a paper because it wasn’t formatted correctly (12 point times new roman) because I had used ariel font, even though she hadn’t laid out what formatting she wanted in the assignment, and didn’t mention it when I asked her what format she wanted.
I was a straight A student and barely passed that class, and had to explain the situation to the head of my department so that they knew it wasn’t my fault and I wouldn’t have to re-take it. As far as I know she never got in trouble, and she still teaches to this day.”
#11. I think he wins.
“I had a science teacher in high school get arrested in the middle of teaching a class for molesting his daughter. I think he wins the “shitty teacher award”.”
#10. He was ostracized.
“My sister died two days before a final. He refused to re-schedule my test. The other professors who did called him out on it and he was ostracized for being a dickhead.
He left a year later.”
#9. Flatly refused.
“I transferred from a UK to a US college, and was struggling in a journalism course as the practices are wildly different in the 2 countries.
As a result, I was struggling to keep up and after exhausting all other avenues, I decided to speak to the teacher (who was generally a very ‘unapproachable’ person, otherwise I’d obviously see him first)
After yet another video/auto presentation lesson I asked him if I could have some extra time, other reading sources or attention for an upcoming midterm. To which he replied “You should have known this before you got here”, giving me no help at all and flatly refused after I repeated my question (at first, I thought he may have misheard me).
Made a complaint to the school, where nothing was done, while I scraped by that lesson by the skin of my teeth.
I did hear that he was fired about 6 months later, after I’d followed up on my complaint (I was already back home by this point).
Apparently I was not the only one to take formal steps against his complete apathy towards his job.”
#8. They aren’t gonna be anything.
“In my opinion any teacher that tells a student that they aren’t gonna be anything is automatically the worst teacher you could have. I’ve had several of those.”
#7. A (literally) huge a**hole.
“High school physics teacher. This man was 60 years old and at least 400 pounds, so he physically could not stand up to “teach” or whatever so he would just sit on his chair and lecture. Not about physics, but about how lazy and stupid this generation is and how we all just wanted “handouts” and to be “spoonfed”. He would embarrass people who didn’t do good on a test in front of the whole class and try to make them feel stupid. With labs, he would literally just bring us to the lab room and tell us to “figure out” what to do with all the equipment. He would grade lab reports unnecessarily strict. By that I mean he would literally skim through the lab report and just grade us based on how long our responses are and how “good” our graphs/tables were (whatever that means). I don’t think anybody in the class ever got over an 85 on a lab report and this was an honors physics class with students who will do anything for a good grade, so that says something. He would always brag about how “I’ve been studying this subject for 40 years” yet never share his knowledge about it with us. I self-taught myself physics and got an 87 in his class (which isn’t bad considering it was the first time I self-taught myself a whole subject) which he ended up rounding down to an 85. I’ve had my fair share of shitty teachers but he takes the cake. Just a (literally) huge asshole.”
#6. Probably because I cried a lot.
“My 5th grade math+science teacher didn’t like me. I’m not sure why exactly but it was probably because I cried a lot. I’m still a complete package of anxiety but as a kid I couldn’t hide it so I’d get embarrassed or anxious and I’d just cry.
She made me move up to sit at the front of the room, facing the rest of the class. So not only was I having to sit with everyone staring at me but I also couldn’t see the whiteboard.
She’d call on me for almost every question which just made everything worse if I didn’t know the answer.
She had a parent/teacher conference with my mom and the 2 other 5th grade teachers (it was split by subject and we just rotated throughout the day). She wanted to move me to remedial studies because I wasn’t doing well in her class. Thankfully the other two teachers plus my mom stood up for me so I was kept with the general population.
She gave us an assignment in which we were given an adult profession and had to calculate our yearly expenses and such. It was a big, month long project we would be working on every day. She allowed some kids to pick which profession they would work on and some kids she did not. I did not, and she announced very proudly that I (sitting in the front) would be a special education teacher. Nothing wrong with that…unless you’re a bunch of 5th graders and unless it was an obvious jab at me from her.
Not a slight against me, necessarily, but I remember the students she liked were the “cool kids” and they’d bring her gifts all the time. She always made sure to show them off every class.”
#5. She didn’t see the need.
“My mom spent a bunch of her own money just so my 2nd grade classroom could have books. Our teacher didn’t see the need and took them to Goodwill.”
#4. She still didn’t believe me.
“My Spanish II teacher in high school, Melba XXXXXXX. I used a single phrase in an assignment that she claimed I could not have known and someone else had obviously written the paper. (It has been 24 years, and I can’t remember the exact term but it was apparently colloquial and had to do with dancing. “Dance of dances” or something like that.) And since I had cheated, I received a zero. I informed her I had used a Spanish-English dictionary (which was allowed) and I would bring in the dictionary to prove it. The very next day I brought it in and she still didn’t believe me despite the phrase being in the book. She upgraded my 0 to a 50 and I got a stern lecture about cheating and being disrespectful.
For the term, I believe my grade was about an 80-ish.
You’re a cunt, Melba and you got me in a lot of trouble at home with a very angry father because of your lie. Fuck you.”
#3. The creep.
“We had a long term substitute in 3rd grade, the creep didn’t allow us to have recess one day and we had to sit quietly at our desks. A girl in my class had to go to the bathroom and he wouldn’t let her, I think she ended up getting up and leaving anyway and after she came back he demanded she talk to him in the hall. A minute later we heard a loud noise, turned out he tried to punch her in the head but she ducked and his hand went thru the wall. Luckily he got fired and teaching license taken away.”
#2. My social anxiety kind of started after that.
“5th grade made fun of me for not knowing how to pronounce a word so my social anxiety kinda started after that but good thing she passed me to the 6th grade because she never wanted to see me again.”
#1. The patience of a toddler.
“I had a biology teacher in 10th grade, lets call her Ms. Boglo
Ms. Boglo had the patience of a toddler. She had absolutely no control over her class and was straight up a terrible teacher. She would only ever give us packets that she downloaded online, or show presentations which weren’t hers. She would have temper tantrums when the class wouldn’t quiet down, and refuse to give us classwork when we misbehaved (which just gave us what we wanted at the time).
She INSISTED that we call her DOCTOR Boglo, even though she really didnt have the qualifications. She was once caught dealing drugs with students and somehow got past it.
One day we were supposed to do a lab, but we didnt quiet down, so she straight up refused to give it to us. Months pass, and when its time to take the state mandated exam for biology, a question about THAT SPECIFIC LAB was on the exam. My class could not answer it because she refused to give it to us. We didnt know the answer because she refused to give us the lab, even though we were ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED to take ALL labs for the state exam. I probably could have reported her for it, but I just wanted my ties with her cut.
A whole year of this biology class, and I learned absolutely nothing. She has absolutely no business being a teacher, and its people like Ms. Boglo that are failing to provide the care that young learners need.
Edit: she was also constantly doing things in her personal life during class time. A lot of the time she would be looking at bikes to buy, or houses. She would also sometimes bring up pictures of her sister, who was a lawyer, and talk about how jealous she was of her. She was one of the most childish teacher i’ve had the experience of dealing with.”
Hug a (good) teacher, folks!
