Best/Worst Teacher Ever

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Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:30 pm

I remember as a 7th grader in a middle school in Panama that was operated by a certain U.S. governmental agency that there was once an American Government teacher. But this teacher was quite obviously a Brit since he was keen on referring to his students as "bloody American kids." Laughing

Also, when I was in 11th grade, I took a class in Microcomputer Applications. This was in a classroom of 30 computers: 26 with 8088 processors and 4 with 486-20 processors, all networked together courtesy of Novell. Anyhow, one day nearly everyone except for a few like me were acting up so she told everyone to stop what they were doing, open up a word processor document, and start to type 100 times "I will not act up in class." A friend of mine and I were so pissed that we decided to do type it out once, and then copied/pasted the sentence over and over. The teacher saw what we were doing and she told us to "log off" the network. We did, but my friend decided to log on remotely using her computer and login and he proceeded to take his documents and send multiple copies of it to all three dot matrix computers for multiple printouts. The teacher became quite pissed and attempted to see who did it. When she found out that she did it (technically) she was furious and threatened to can everyone in the class unless the perp fessed up.

Of course, no one did but after listening to her ranting, my friend told her: "go ahead and send all 32 of us to the principal's office. see if we care. If you do and we get punished, not only will my parents who are lawyers are gonna drag you before the school board and have them fire your sorry old ass, BUT they'll personally sue you for harassment!" She stormed out of the room and left campus for the rest of the day. In the end, not one of us were punished for that day! Smile

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:10 pm

Geography teacher. Used to give me a C- every other essay and F to C for the ones in between. When I figured it out I would tell the class my results before he walked in. Cue laughter when he read my result and a look of knowing something was up, but not knowing what. Very satisfying.
But as I was lining up for the A levels (final year's crucial exams for non-UKers) he came up to me and said "You're going to fail". Bastard.
I went on to get a Geog Honours degree from a world-clas uni and went back, plastered, one year to ram my degree up his arse. He'd gone. If you're out there.. you're a tit!

@Simba - avoid anything gym related and your school sounds a blast Laughing

We had one teacher who would turn up on Saturday morning (I know) hung over, walk in, clasp his head and dismiss the class. Great guy.

Catholic schools? Me too - but I went out with a hot Italian chick in Rome once, and was crossing a huge zebra crossing near the Vatican. I had her and her sister on my arms, both mouth-wateringly cute, and a nun coming the other way gave me a look that said I was going straight to hell. My proudest day.

419Eater is my life Joined: 26 Jan 2007 Posts: 356

I had a health teacher in high school who believed that kids with mental disabilities just needed stricter punishments and it'd sort 'em out.

She also spouted a lot of ridiculous nonsense she picked up somewhere and never bothered to look up to verify. The worst I can remember is when she told us about how ALL sexually transmitted diseases originated from one bisexual female flight attendant who had sex with too many foreigners. If you ever asked her where she got a particular bit of information or for further details about something, she'd give you a warning for being intentionally disruptive. Rolling Eyes

(So I didn't ask how, exactly, these diseases were spontaneously generated if they didn't exist before that. I'm fairly certain she didn't think that far into it anyway.)

There were some things she did specifically to me that I don't really want to bring up since I'm still really bitter over them and thinking about it too much gets me upset again, even though it was two or three years ago. Smile

Of course, if anyone tried to report her to the school officials when she got REALLY out of line, she'd deny it and say they were spiteful brats out to get her, and the school would say there was no concrete evidence that she did anything wrong (no matter how many witnesses there were) so there was nothing they could do.

At first I wondered how she got to be a teacher in the first place, but then I realized that this is a creepy little hick town that many professionals probably avoid like the plague. Very Happy

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:26 pm

Not sure about worst teacher, but pretty much all of them in 3rd form sucked. Or was it just the effect our class had on them? By the beginning of the 2nd term Form 3L was being referred to by the staff as '3 Hell'...

English teacher would get so frustrated with us he would often just throw his hands up in the air and go for stroll muttering under his breath. Not returning until the class had ended.

Science teacher would shout a lot. Sometimes he'd go stomping off too. Not the wisest thing to do, leaving rampant 13 year olds in a science lab...

Maths teacher broke down and left the room three times. Twice crying and thrid time screaming obscenities. The principle called in for a chat not long after.

Social Studies teacher just gave up, but once decided to detain the class after school and suffered the penalty of having to drive 3 of us 22km home because she had made us miss the bus.

Art History teacher hated us with a vengence. The feeling was mutual and we taught her how to rant about students while somehow staying on the lesson material.

Music teacher was simply hopeless. So turning the lessons into a free period with optional attendance seemed to be an acceptable solution for both parties.

The following year 3 Hell became 4L and was privileged with being taught by the head of department for each subject. English and Science still couldn't hack it however. We were a right bunch of little bastards and bitches and the staff must have been very relieved when we reached 5th form and went our seperate ways.

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:49 pm

I had a chinese lecturer last year and I ended up with 40% (a bare pass, and by far my lowest mark in three years) on the module because I could barely understand a word and he didnt answer my emails when I asked to see him in his office, and was never there when I turned up. His book (which he 'wrote' and made it the core text!) was crap too - had all the same stuff in it as many other books published earlier. I'm so glad I photocopied the relevant pages instead of buying it.

I'm not so bothered now though because I passed my degree with a 2:1 (which is as good as it was ever going to get), so in the long run it didnt matter.

I also had an IT teacher at secondary school who knew less about computers than me and he got a big assembly in his honour when he came to leave! ...wtf?

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 1:04 am

3rd grade, Mrs Saya., ex SS she bitch with sulphuric acid in her veins. I was sick, flat out sick. I raised my hand, I was told to put it down. This happened about 3 times. OK then, time for action. I projectile vomited onto 3 different students like a championship golf course irrigation head at 200 psi, that was run down by a out of control triplex mower. As she actually apologised to me, the pupils trampled each other trying to escape the maloderous stew which had traveled far and wide. Next week, when I came back, she was her usual bitch supreme.

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 1:04 am

my grade 5 & 6 teacher (had her two years in a row), made my life hell by always reminding me that I wasn't as smart as my older sister was. And that my older sister caused her no end of grief.

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 1:24 am

@ Callum. I guess that's what you get for going to the city's "best high school".

I had a pretty terrible Maths teacher in 4th form (when i was 14). The word was out that she'd failed maths when she was at high school, which may or may not have been true. Then in 5th form my english teacher was utterly woeful. She'd disappear for 20 minutes regularly in the middle of classes, supposedly to go and do photocopying and other stuff like that. No wonder english was my worst school certificate mark.

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 1:27 am

We had a teacher in what was then called Standard 2 (6-7 years old).

She had a Ph.D in Psychology.

But more importantly, she was a witch. Not in the religious sense but in then "I live to torture children through cruel intimidation".

She used to march children into her class (military style) and was a great believer in negative reinforcement. If a child did something wrong (and by wrong, I mean colouring outside the lines by accident or not having their desk completely square) they would be told they were worthless and stupid.

She was, quite clearly, borderline evil. There was actually a depression epidemic at the school, and parents started taking their kids to child psychiatrists. No one could figure out what the problem was, but the individual counsellors thought that the parents were abusing the kids (because of course the shrinks didn't realise there was a relation to the class as they all went to different shrinks).

When the parents finally figured out what was going on they, of course, went ballistic. But, unfortunately, it took the school a further 3 years to remove her (she was very crafty). I really feel for every child that had to experience it. Apparently (according to my parents) I spiralled into an unexplainable depression at the age of 7 and they could not for the life of them figure out what was going on... and I was one of the students she was more lenient on.

As soon as I was removed from the environment, however, things changed almost immediately.

Just goes to show, we send our kids off to school, where they spend more time with a complete stranger every week than they do with their families... just who is teaching your kids?

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 1:27 am

I had a teacher back in high school who was convinced that the year 2000's arrival would bring Jesus back. One day, (this was early 90's) he forgot to take his brain medication and turned the class into an angry rant about how blacks and orientals should "turn themselves white" in order to make Jesus happy when he came back. A beautiful moment when students in my class, of all races and genders, were looking at each other wondering if we were on Totally Hidden Video.

Later that day, at least according to the rumour mill, he started ranting again and let the n-bomb fly. Not even the teacher's union could save his job then.

He then got barred from a nearby University campus for constantly showing up at any sort of religious group that was not Christian and/or white to rant.

He eventually leapt off the roof of a 7 story parking garage. It was in 2001, so I'm guessing the disappointment at Jesus not coming back finally got to him.

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 1:38 am

Josh wrote:

@ Callum. I guess that's what you get for going to the city's "best high school"

Nah, wasn't THAT school, wasn't Pakawan*** either.

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 2:19 am

Worst one I had was a Korean physics teacher with the last name of Park. Almost every single one of his examples for this introductory physics class involved bombs, blowing stuff up, car crashes, or "fat momma on sled have big momentum!" Also in lab we could barely understand him due to his accent. So when we had questions after his lab intro his response (and it sounded exactly like this) went about like this every single time:

"I all larry tol yu douche bag!"

Guy was a prick and a lousy teacher. Evil or Very Mad

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 2:21 am

Josh wrote:

@ Callum. I guess that's what you get for going to the city's "best high school".

Do I detect some insecurities about one's own high school?

Can't imagine why mate, you went to a very fine school.

I'm having fun guessing which school Callum went to now... Confused

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 2:25 am

^^I'm perfectly secure with the high school I went to. It just sounded like he was talking about a certain high school that is rather well known in Auckland.

I'm sure you know the one I'm talking about.

full auto wrote:

Almost every single one of his examples for this introductory physics class involved bombs, blowing stuff up, car crashes, or "fat momma on sled have big momentum!"

Wow that sounds like an AWESOME physics teacher!

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 2:33 am

Yeah, cool, no dramas mate, I'm just playing with you. I'll shut up and get back to work. Sorry for posting off topic guys. Back to woeful tales of evil school masters and all that.

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 7:45 am

I had a nutter teaching electronics who spent 1 full school year explaining how a diode works. The next year he started all over again, but then it only took him one trimester. At the end of that 2nd year we were supposed to know how a transistor operates.

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 10:28 am

One of the teachers in my school was fired after an FBI sting caught his credit card being used on sites that I wont mention here..apparently, he was only using it for research Confused

Other than that, I had a janitor who went by the moniker of "Bendy Roy". He took a dislike to myself and a group of mates after we sent a limo to his house one lunchtime.

What can I say, ordering a pizza for him just seemed a bit lightweight Laughing

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:31 pm

'O' level biology. Great bloke - imagine Doc Brown from Back to the Future. He was absent minded & clumsy - once clipped a beaker of boiling water mid gesture & sent it all over a mate of mine. Always got everybody's name wrong. Biggest problem was his accent - possibly Yorkshire, but so thick we couldn't understand a word he said.

Surprisingly enough, most of us passed.

Annoying Stuck-Up Cow Joined: 10 Aug 2006 Posts: 222

I had this teacher for my A-level maths course... well she was a nice old dear, but I swear to God she either had a bottle of vodka on her at all times or a small still in her class storeroom. She consistanly reeked of the drink.
And everyone knew it. Another matter that probably didn't help was my friends and I's insistance to everyone that she was a closet substance abuser.
And that she was the world's first pure ethanol based life form.

That was a low point.

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 6:44 pm

had a French teacher who was completely nuts : smeared butter on her face for her 'complexion"... She pretended to read the newspaper during exams... only she had cut out two big holes in the newspaper to observe us....

My brother had the best laugh though : his teacher made a point of everyone's satchels not being on the floor in between the desks (all desks had a hook you were supposed to hang the satchel on). A friend of his ignored this rule and kept on putting his satchel on the floor. One day the teacher flew in a rage and picked up the satchel and threw it out of the window...only to realise 2 secs later that it was his own....

...had a headmaster who hated my guts and kept looking for reasons to punish or humiliate me.. One day he came into geography class and asked me to name 10 U.S. cities without looking at the map (I'm from Europe....). So I went : ehhh, New York, ehhh, Los Angeles, ehhh Chicago, ehhh San Diego... and he goes ; "San Diego, Hahahah, that's in Mexico.... One look at the geography teacher (who was red-faced not wanting to insult her boss...), and off he went in a huff... Left me alone for a month or two after that....

Oh, nearly forgot : being Dutch and growing up in Belgium (there's a kind of rivalry going on bewteen the two countries, especially regarding football), I had a teacher who was laughing his head off that Holland lost the 1978 World Cup finals in front of the whole clss (I was 12 at the time)... My comment that Belgium hadn't even gone past the qualifying stages didn't endear me to him any further...
He died a few years later, he's got some virus on a school trip... Sad bugger...

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 9:26 pm

My electrical theory lecturer at tech.

Short, fat, balding, angy thin skinned tightwad with a barely understandable accent from the north of England. For almost an entire term our class was trying to work out what on earth pears had to with electric motors? "Pear factor, you need to use the pear factor". Until one of us actually read the textbook and discovered the term 'power factor'. He would write and write and write on the board, although scrawl would be a better term, and when we had out first term exam we discovered he had taught us only 1/3 of the topics the exam covered.

He used to brag that using an electric kettle to heat the water for washing the dishes saved him cents, yes, entire cents, each month! His most endearing feature was the way he would change color from his usual north of England tan through pink to beet red when he got annoyed.

He also didn't have much of a clue about what he was teaching. There's something in electricty called 'eddy currents' which reduces efficiency of power transformers. When he mentioned the term in passing I bought the lesson to a halt by asking for an explanation. Not being one one to miss an opportunity, whenever there was a chance to legitimately raise the subject of eddy currents I would bring it up again. I did this for a couple of months with eddy currents always being dismissed as being far too complicated to discuss and having no relevance anyway (my class mates started calling me Eddy, which also pissed him off). Then I found a simple explanation in another text along with a statement that the effects of eddy currents should not be ignored for a number of reasons. I filed this away and waited to pounce.

When I finally launched my attack the response was well worth it. A long shouted rant, buggy eyes, bright red face, topped off by him snatching the photocopy of the text I had made and binning it before storming out of the room.

He got fired shortly after for being a useless lecturer.

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 9:41 pm

My mother had a row with the headmaster of my primary school and won. He took it out on my brothers and myself, we also had the other teachers bullying us, we didn't tell our mother until after we had all left.
I hated school was glad to go to work, i learn't more.

Did have a nice teacher a mr paulus who was our history teacher at secondary school, i still love history. being a mixed school, he suggested to us boys that if you make a date with a girl to meet her at the cinema, tell that you will meet her inside then you don't have pay for her.
Girls did not think it was funny us boys did.

My wife wen't to an all girls school and had a headmistress who keep 2 dogs with her in her study, they all knew what was going on.

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 11:31 pm

Added Best teacher as well, It would have to be my current science teacher best one I ever had Very Happy

V@Josh: I love subs Laughing

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 11:33 pm

Does he let you go on 419eater in class? Wink

My Maths with Calculus teacher in 7th form (final year of high school) was pretty cool. Did lots of tutoring and help outside class... my sister ended up dating her son. Rolling Eyes

Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 1:43 am

I had this high school chemistry teacher named Lenny. That was his first name and that's what we called him. Best teacher ever. We played chess during lunch. We went snow camping together. There was a teacher's strike that year and he held classes at the YMCA. I learned chemistry from him. I would see him on TV volunteering. He taught me that too. I went on to work as a chemist for 57 days. It sucked. I then went on to teach chemistry. I would often sit at my desk and ask myself, "How would Lenny explain this?" I loved teaching chem but could not afford to do that for a living. I paid more in taxes the previous year than my first year teaching.