Who was the worst teacher you ever or still have?

[karl lutz]

I had no bad teachers that mattered but art was my enemy! the teacher had a gay son and she chose me to pick on because of my superiorly masculine almost ready to manifest itself qualitys "I was 12" and it was her mission in life to make all men that weren't like her son sorry.

 

[cmjust0]

When I was in fifth grade, I had a math teacher who actually taught my dad.. Dad was born in '51, I was born in '78.. This old bitty was as jaded and crusty as they get..

Anyway, I did poorly on a quiz once so she decided to punish me by sending the quiz home to be signed by my mom who was -- and still is -- pretty much a sociopath.

Anyway, I put it off.. Teacher asks me for the signed quiz the next day, 'oops, I forgot.' I was told that I'd BETTER get it signed that night...

Ugh..

So, I wait and wait and wait and finally present it to my mom late in the evening with teary eyes and a guilty conscience..

If you knew my mom, it would go without saying that she did exactly what anyone would expect and **VASTLY** overestimated the gravity of the situation.. Indeed, she actually looks up the number and calls the teacher at home that very second...

he teacher proceeds to inform my mom that she's "encroaching" (I'll never forget that word..."encroaching") on her personal time -- even after taking the highly unusual step of sending a quiz home to be signed like it was a big fricken deal! So, my mom FLIPS OUT and they get in this huge screaming match.

My mom's threatening to do this and that and blah blah blah and I can hear my teacher yelling back at her, etc.. The teacher eventually hangs up and my mom is just LIVID -- and, of course, I'm the root of all the hubbub so she immediately turns her anger to ME and unleashes a verbal onslaught..

I'm, like...10.

She finally signs the quiz at some point after refusing a bunch of times for no good reason other than to upset me, but when I come in the next day and present the teacher with the signed copy of the quiz, the teacher gives **me** the cold shoulder because my mom was -- and still is -- a gigantic deebag and things basically spiral downward from there for the rest of the year.

What makes it even better was that my mom actually went out and bought a bunch of math workbooks -- most of which weren't even for fifth graders -- and tells me I have to do those AND my regular homework, even though she has NO CLUE what she's even looking at, nor where we are in math, nor what we've learned, etc.... She's not willing to help, either -- I just gotta do them..

Yeah, that'll fix it.

Luckily, as with everything else in my childhood, she didn't follow through at all and they went quietly into the trashcan at some point.

As they were screaming and yelling at each other on the telephone, though, I came to the conclusion that I was a math idiot and ended up really struggling with it all the way through my associate's degree.. Total mental block.

Once I got out in the real world, got a job (as a software engineer, no less), bought a house, and got out from under my mom's evil, manipulative thumb, I decided to go back to school... This is like five years after my associate's.. Anyway, first rattle out of the box, I took Calculus because...well, basically because I'd removed myself from all that toxicity and had managed to build a little self confidence.

Initially was shooting for a C, but ended up with an A -- and it was easy.

So, worst teacher ever? My mom, by far. She taught me more bad things than I've even realized yet.

Second worst? That evil witch of a women from 5th grade.

For what it's worth, it's really a lot of fun growing up being told that you're stupid and have no common sense and so forth, yet scoring above average on every aptitude test you take.. I was placed in upper level math classes *three* times based on those tests and bombed them everytime.. It never made sense to me...I couldn't figure out why any test would show that I was good at math when I wasn't..

I was in "Talented and Gifted" at one point with a bunch of rich kids...we didn't have squat, so they all looked at me like "What's this guy's deal?" I didn't feel right there, either.. I don't think I ever told my mom I was in that and begged to be released until they finally let me go back to regular classes..

I was even invited to take the ACT for Duke University's "Talent Identification Program" when I was 12 years old...walked in cold and scored a 19, composite.

Point is...well, I dunno what my point is

except to say it's a little disturbing to think about what I might have been able to accomplish with my life had I been born to a functional family that actually encouraged me..

Wow.. Dunno what brought all that out, but I sure feel better.

 

[joebryant]

Quote:
And I know her name, ... LEGION!

 

[FluffyColor]

First Grade Mrs.Barnes.If you talked in class,she gave you five points off the next test.Even if you said one word.If you didn't raise your hand at least twice in one lesson she'd give you an N- in "Participates in class discussions."If you talked during a test,even if you were finished with it,you got a 0.And worst of all,if you got less than an eighty on a test,she would give you a note telling your parents how you did,how much time you should study,and what would happen if you didn't get better!!!!!!And if your parents were crazy enough to listen to her,you had to study THE WHOLE NIGHT FOR TWO WEEKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!And she gave you a huge packet full of worksheets on the subject you did "bad" on,and if you weren't finish by the next morning, you failed the subject.Along with more packets to finish.Some kids had homework over the summer because of a heap of packets given to them months ago.Sometimes your parents had to drive BACK TO YOUR OLD SCHOOL to turn in the homework!!!!!!And by then you were halfway done with the second grade.I think some kids that had Mrs.Barnes as a teacher with me are still working on thier packets now.Luckily when I got a 78 on a test,it was three years later in the fourth grade.

OK....that was long...........

 

[Amyable]

Worst at teaching for me was Mr. Dreschke, 10th grade geometry. He would be doing an example math problem on the blackboard, almost finish it, step back and ponder for a moment, then say "no, wait, this isn't right" and cross it off! The whole class had been studiously copying it and now was completely confused. I don't think any of us learned much in his class.

 

[NoseyChickens]

I have 5 kids, we have only had a few problems with poor teachers. For the most part they have all been amazing! We have a blended family, as three of our children are adopted, our youngest being biracial black and hispanic. Last year when she was in 1st grade she had a sub, Mr Spikes. Her teacher was on bed rest due to being pregnant. Anyway she had Mr Spikes for a while. One day she was on the playground with her sister, who is white, and this man walks up to them and asks Marisa if this was her sister. She syays yes this is my big sister Kiley (both of whom are adopted) and this fool looks at my 6 yr old daughter and says "Well you must be adopted then" What a jerk! How does he know they didn't just have different father's or whatever. Luckily for us we have been very honest wiht our daughters from the get go and they already know they are adopted. But then this fool man continued on referring to her "adoptive Dad and her Adoptive Mom" throughout the day. I complianed the the principal, he was no longer the sub, but I never even got an apology from the teacher. Mr Spikes is a loser!

 

[arabookworm]

the worst teacher I ever had was my geometry teacher in ninth grade. she could not control a classroom to save her life, so the class was basically just chaos start to finish. I am so glad I found geometry very easy, because I ended up having to teach it to myself.

 

[ducks4you]

Six grade math teacher. Called students "stupid" when you didn't understand a concept.

 

[NoelTate]

I can only remember two teachers who were just totally inept. Mrs. Bumpers, my 9th grade English teacher, told a boy in our class, "That ain't no way to make no sentence." I knew then that would be a wasted year.
Mrs. Bell was a very sweet lady, and she was probably very knowledgeable about accounting and business practices, but she was completely incapable of conveying information to students.
Now, I also had those who were just mean as the devil and had no business in a classroom. Mrs. Herrin and Mrs. Ward were two of the meanest people I have met to this very day. Mrs. Ward used to torment a friend of mine who had a learning disability. Even as a 6th grade child, I knew David had a problem, and I never understood why Mrs. Ward could not see that. Now I know she was just mean and hateful. Mrs. Kent could have been a good teacher, but she was too busy taking out personal problems on students and trying to belittle us to make herself feel better. Then, I thought she was mean. Today, I just think she was sad.
Oddly enough, I became a teacher, probably not in spite of those people, but because of them. I never want my students to feel the way I did in those classrooms. I hope it's a much more positive, successful experience for them.

 

[cmjust0]

I also had an instructor in an advanced level math class in college who wrote something similar to this on the board once:

((2X + 4)*5) - (X * Y) / 5) + 18X - 52) + (67Y * 3X) = 42XY * 63

...or something equally long, I dunno..

Then she goes "So we'll factor that down..." and wrote something like:

X = 14

Hands went up across the room...she turned and looked genuinely stunned. She called on someone and they said "Can you show us how you factored that down?" -- all the other hands went down, because that was EVERYONE'S question.

She got all red-faced and angry and yelled "YA KNOW WHAT?!?! IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO FACTOR THAT DOWN, THEN YOU DON'T NEED TO BE IN THIS CLASS!!!!!!!!!!!"

Next class, there were maybe 1/3rd of the students left.. I was one, because if I dropped a class I'd lose my fulltime status and possibly my health insurance.. I totalled FAILED that class...hard.

It was widely known that she was an alcoholic who had held some really prestigious jobs around the country but ticked it all away on booze and partying till all hours of the morning.

The walls of her office at the school were literally covered with beer signs and other alcohol-related party paraphenalia. To see it, you'd think she'd be a lot cooler than she was...