I’ve had a few really great teachers over the years. I still admire them to this day, but they are more of the exception, not the rule.
I had a 4th grade teacher who was really old. During summers, she’d travel to a different place, then constantly bring it up during the next school year. At times, she’d try to one-up a student who talked about their experience by bringing up an exciting experience on one of her trips. It was as if she was the only person who travelled ever. Also, she was incredibly forgetful, but believed she still knew everything. When she messed up on something important in her lesson, she’d ignore it and move on. She’d constantly forget and mix up kids names unapologetically (she messed up mine at least ten times, even when I had just said it). I did not know the name Stephen was so difficult. I guess she thought Joseph was a much better name for me.
I had a 9th grade math teacher that was the tough jock/athletic type who also taught gym sometimes. He knew math, but the way he taught it was so bland and by-the-book. At the beginning of class, he’d read out a lesson and write a few notes on the board, then sit at his desk the rest of the class unwilling to help anyone. Most of all, he was incredibly moody (liked to yell). I remember one time, I accidently submitted the wrong page of a minor assignment. When I told him, he said “Oh, ya think?” in what had to be the most condescending tone in the history of the world and sarcastically took in my other page like he was holding gold. What I didn’t get was his best friend was another teacher, who was widely known as the best in the school.
Chestnuts roasted by Dr. Acula @ 09/10/2006 3:59 AM
Have to mention this – when my mother was in school, one of her teachers threw an iron at her. An iron as in one of the things your iron clothes with. Yeah…
Chestnuts roasted by Max @ 09/10/2006 5:30 AM
Worst teacher hands down was my anatomy teacher in 12th grade. The horrible thing was, I didn’t even need that class to graduate, I’d signed up for it because they pressured the students to take more science classes.
This guy was awful. He’d belittle all the students in the class. Nobody ever did anything that was good enough. I studied my butt off for that class, and never was able to pull a passing grade. I ended up in tears over that class more than once. Also, the man could never get my name right. Cristin is not my name, darnit.
My mother went to have a conference with him. Now, he was a person of color and I am not. And the first thing he said to my mother was, ” I don’t care what she told you, I am not a racist.” My mother’s response was, “Oh, she told me right off that you aren’t racist, she says you’re mean to everybody no matter what color they are.”
Mom ended up talking to the school counselor about it. Apparently all the faculty knew what a horrible teacher he was, since the counselor just said, “Oh God, let’s get her out of that class!”
So I moved to Home Ec, where I lived happily until graduation.
Chestnuts roasted by Elfinlady @ 09/10/2006 7:17 AM
Ode to Coach O”Brian
I used to love Gym,
I didn’t understand the superiority…
of men to women….
God given from Adams rib?
Why don’t we worship you…
we are the lessor beings….
oh you stupid girls…..
We don’t worship you because you are a mean old sexist…
using God as an excuse to be a dick….
and damn us to hell for coming out of the locker room late….
I ran home crying,threw up in my hair and you called me weak…..
Screw tenure, your ass is gone…..
Oh Coach O’Brian….
Chestnuts roasted by Fristine @ 09/10/2006 7:29 AM
Mrs. Kyle, 4th grade. *scowls* F***ing hOr.
She made fun of me (in front of the class) for my accent (English and she was ‘southern’) and generally everything about me seemed to enrage that woman.
I hate her, hands down, I hate her. Hate everything about her and honestly hope she will die alone and unloved because of what a bitch she really is.
She is the reason that I will not go up to a chalk board in a classroom in front of my peers and write anything that could possibly be corrected.
God, I just really really hate her. I hope she has passed on or retired so she isn’t ruining more children’s lives in the realm of education.
Chestnuts roasted by rimmie @ 09/10/2006 7:59 AM
I wish I could remember this guy’s name,he was a teacher at Centerville Junior High in the Lancaster PA area. Whenever he taught a study hall,he would go into the boy’s room and uh,”amuse himself” in a stall. And,lest you think it was a stupid rumor,my friends and I caught him. If I could remember his name I would post it,but I can’t and don’t want to accidentally put another teacher’s name up.
Manimal-My girlfriend bought me Gojira for Christmas,so I have to wait. But I’m happy knowing December 24th will be the last time I watch wild and crazy Steve Martin go to Egypt from America with a layover in Tokyo. WTF?
Chestnuts roasted by Kid Nicky @ 09/10/2006 8:10 AM
My last post I swear. My high school math teacher was on the old side and always put people in the hall. He did this often and for no real reason. One day I was told that I was gonna do terrible on the test the next day just as I had on the previous test. I was a bit confused, and I said “But I got a 94 on the last test.” So I got sent out to the hall. The next year I was a teacher’s aide for science and spent most of the hour preparing samples for the next hour’s science class. The back room that I did this in shared a back room with his math class next door. He walked in the back and had a heart attack while I was there. He ended up having double bypass surgury after that. Even though he was a jerk to me in class, I got along with him after that.
My 3rd grade PE teacher, Ms. Zellers, was pure evil. I broke my arm that year and had to sit out of a lot of PE. She didn’t like it and told me to do push ups while the others were playing. I pointed out the fact that my left arm was in a cast and she told me to do one-armed push ups. Her girlfriend was also the assistant PE teacher that year, they were both evil.
My 11th grade ecology teacher was just creepy. My mom had surgery that year and had some complications, so I had to stay home a lot and help out. I explained this to the principal and all my teachers, and they were all understanding except for Mr. Smith, which I think was a fake name. I kept up with all my homework and got good grades on all the tests, but he still failed me at the end of the year for failing to show up. After the principal got called in, he said he’d change my grade to an A if I stayed after school and did some extra credit. As sleezy as this guy was, I didn’t trust what his extra credit would be, so I took the F. The next year he was fired for looking at porn on the school’s computers, and for trying the extra credit line on some freshman girls. Also, he was missing most of his right index finger, and would point at you with the stub.
Chestnuts roasted by Stacey @ 09/10/2006 9:23 AM
in 6th grade there was a social studies teacher – mrs. belfiore. she made you take tests in black colored pencil, which wasn’t mean, just kinda creepy.
but if you didn’t have your colored pencil, she flipped out.
she threw a textbook at a kid once, and then a desk.
and then she was suspended for the rest of the year.
Forgot about my choir teacher in 9th grade. She was insane and didn’t like to be up in front of people. Towards the middle of the year, she found out she was pregnant and came to class crying and told us all. Now being around 14, nobody in the class cared, and she freaked out and told us we were all insensitive and left for around 10 minutes. When she came back, she was fine and acted like it never happened. A couple months later, there’s a rumor going around school that if you stared at her, she’d cry. So my entrie class just stared when she came in, didn’t say anything, just looked at her. It lasted maybe 2 minutes until she snapped, said she hated us all and locked herself in her office and cried. She never came back after that day.
Chestnuts roasted by Stacey @ 09/10/2006 9:38 AM
Worst teacher? Its impossible to pick just one. The two severely overweight gym teachers for junior high were real winners. They tried to make the few kids with exemptions do things their doctors said they could not do and if the kids refused they would belittle them in front of the whoole class and call them weak. I know cos I had an exemption from certain activities due to asthma. A 5th grade teacher would not let us have water or any kind of food or drink in class yet she would eat all day long… and what was the deal with the water fountain nazi teachers? ONE SIP OF WaTER!! or else you got whacked with a ruler. Its farking 100+ degrees out and they werent exactly cooling an old school building off effectively soo we were always hot and sweaty and yet could only get one sip of the crappy tap water? I was in a opreschool daycare for ONE DAY that pulled the same stunt with the one sip of water thing. Parents never sent me again after that. There was also the librarian in 4th grade that would not let me check out Ol yeller cos it was above my reading level. After that I kept bringing in my own books from home – I was into Tom Clancy and the Dragonlance books at the time. Weird combo I know..
Chestnuts roasted by kittycatgirl2k @ 09/10/2006 9:41 AM
Terror Claws Cole I was in third grade in 1999. I actually grew up with a lot of the toys and books that Matt talks about thanks to a young love of comic book stores and flea markets.
Chestnuts roasted by Darth Poop @ 09/10/2006 10:11 AM
Man, I have been scanning all these posts, hoping none of them match a description of ME! One of my worst fears is that I will be somebody’s ‘worst teacher’ story someday…so far so good! How bout you, Manimal??
In third grade, I was NOT good at long division. Our teacher was going through a nasty divorce with another teacher in the school- she went from a nice lady to ultra bitch. I had worked so hard on my homework sheet that I had erased a little hole into the paper. She held up my paper in class and said that “some people are so stupid when in comes to long division that they ERASE HOLES INTO THEIR PAPERS! Right, Jennifer?” then she looked right at me….and the whole class looked at me…and I burst into tears.
In a way she helped me, though- I went home that night and at 9 years old I announced that I would be a teacher- A GOOD teacher that didn’t make kids cry just for kicks. And the rest is history.
Chestnuts roasted by Muppet Baby @ 09/10/2006 12:16 PM
Muppet Baby: Bad teachers are also a big part of the reason why I decided to go for a teaching degree. I think a lot of people are inspired to teach by how bad their teachers were. Kinda sad, but at least the bad teachers are inspiring people somehow.
I feel sorry for that choir teacher… sounds like she had anxiety problems and picked the wrong career. Also shows what dicks kids can be to authority figures. On the flipside she shouldnt have been looking to her class for emotional support either… still feel sorry for that one though. The rest of the teachers on here sound like demons especially the ones that threw chairs or other large inanimate objects…
Chestnuts roasted by kittycatgirl2k @ 09/10/2006 2:24 PM
My 7th grade math teacher, Mrs. Durban. Her nickname was “Mrs. Bourbon,” for reasons I’m sure can be inferred. She had a nervous breakdown in the middle of the year and was never seen again.
Chestnuts roasted by Monte @ 09/10/2006 2:27 PM
If there’s any plus to our litigious society, it’s gotta be that no teacher would dare try some of these stunts today, right? Throwing shit at students? If someone gave my kid a black eye or left my disabled child wandering after hours or fucked with their grades I would sue the ever loving shit out of all involved parties.
Ratemyteachers.com doesn’t seem to be as comprehensive as ratemyprofessors.com, which makes perfect sense, but is disappointing. All my schools were full of new teachers I’d never heard of. Though my junior high band teacher was in there, with a comment simply saying “I think he’s catty”. That amused me; I actually liked the guy okay, but it’s a fair point
Congrats on the new job Tetsu! Happy bday kidneyboy!
Chestnuts roasted by squee4242 @ 09/10/2006 2:43 PM
My 7th grade teacher Ms.Stewart…….I don’t want to talk about it
Chestnuts roasted by Mightystalfos @ 09/10/2006 3:18 PM
I have had a few bad teachers in the past. Most of them were decent people, just horrible teachers. I think the worst one was my Elm. Statistics teacher. He was very flighty, and would jump from one problem to another, then back. He also had a habit of doing an entire problem one way, but would then tell us that we shouldn’t do the problem that way. He was all over the place. I just wrote limmericks in his class:
There once was a professor named Heim
His thoughts could change on a dime
He confused his Stat. class so that they could not pass
And they all had a terrible time
Needless to say, I failed the class.
Chestnuts roasted by DeeJay @ 09/10/2006 3:31 PM
Ok, I know this is long, and a little late for SNT, but, hey, I’ve been working all weekend out of town, just getting back today, and I’m bored right now.
In a shock of shocks, my least favorite teacher was my 7th grade match teacher. 7th grade must be hell all around. I’ll admit I had a bit of a rep as a smartass that year, only when called for, teachers in the same “clique” had it out for me then, but others I got along fine with. When a teacher got snippy, or I questioned something (not in a bad way), they’d get pissed, and try to cut me down to save face, which I was not about to take. This teacher I want to talk about was the worst of all. Her name was Mrs. Shetler aka Hitler, aka Mama Mustachio (for having a mustache obviously). She looked, much like the creepy old lady for Poltergiest, with glasses, and a southern accent. Now, I hadn’t even got the chance to say anything remotely bad, she was all over me from day one. She was mean all around (I wasn’t the person who came up with calling her Hitler), but I was her favorite target. I suck at math, so she had all the ammo she needed, because her early attempts to flat out mock me were getting too obvious, where every kid in class knew she hated me for no real reason, plus, I always zinged back. I was in severe need of actual math help, a few years later, a nice math teacher actually took the time to realize how mathlexic I was, and tutored me to my first “A” in the subject, but ol’ Hitler opted to simply use my math failures to her advantage. It was clear, her goal was to completely degrade me into cowering in fear over the humilation, or finally blow my stack and get kicked out of school for ripping her a new asshole.
Our “feud” got worse as the year went on, she got me booted from class for about a week, before my mother called the school to tell them she was forcing me to sit alone in a dark room (literally) for the duration of her lesson, without any work to do, or even trying to ship me to another teacher. I got taken back, and, because I’m Latino, and the school freaked over a racially charged lawsuit or whatever (personally, I hate playing “the card”, even if it seemed like the obvious conclusion to jump to here), she then buddied up to me real quick, even briefly giving me lessons after school, only to drop that once the fuss was over. Things went back to the way they were, leading to the titanic showdown everyone knew was coming.
As usual, when reviewing assignments with the class, she singled me out, knowing that I sure as hell wouldn’t have a damned clue what the answer was. So, instead of you know, HELPING me find the right answer, she went off on a diatribe in front of our class of about 25 kids about what a FAILURE I was, and would never amount to anything in my life, just about as clearly as that, only it went on for at least 5 minutes, with kids now looking on in horror. I couldn’t take it anymore, and quite frankly, told her to “shut the f*ck up”. I then told her how tired I was for her crap, calling her on every time she singled me out, why she never punished the other kids, who, at times, were worse than I was (one kid would throw loud tantrums). I wasn’t yelling, but I was very upset, and using mass amounts of profanity, maybe not the “best” way to get my point across, though she sure as heck didn’t try cutting me off or talking over me for the first time ever. She actually was near tears, and, when I was finished, I simply walked off, went to the office, and told them what I did. The fun didn’t end there. She had gotten her just desserts in front of our whole class, so, to save face, she decided to twist the story when she talked to school officials. In her version, she never even said anything to me to start things, I threw a desk across the room (I think she claimed to be the target), screamed at her, and threatened her with violence. Of course, with the neighboring teacher hearing no shouting or desk sailing across the classroom, and 2 dozen witnesses, the real story came out. Besides, I was boxed in, to even try lifing a desk to throw, I would’ve found it hard to clear it above the surrounding desks, at least smacking some poor kid in the head, it was totally ridiculous.
In one last gasp to “control” the class, she drew a line in the sand, actually insituting a new policy where she split the desks in two sections, one side for “Those who want to learn”, and “Those who don’t”. Out of spite, just about everyone, besides three or four kids chose the non-learning side. Of course, the office freaked, and the next day, classes were back to normal.
She refused to even acknowledge me for the rest of the year, walking on the other side of the hall as me even. She retired from full-time teaching the next year, though returned as my sub twice the following year. Once, she singled me out, much like Squee, during a social studies lesson about Nazis, saying that if I somehow were to find my way to Nazi occupied countries back then, I would’ve been killed by Hitler. I kindly laughed it off, asking how many Puerto Ricans lived in Nazi territories, kicked out of the class promptly. The second time, I hadn’t even gotten to my seat in 8th grade English, she was subbing, and we had one quick exchange for nostalgia’s sake over her questioning my seating arrangement, sitting next to a friend (despite the fact she had the damned chart), my retort having me booted instantly, walking right back out. After that incident, she retired, for good this time, giving up teaching altogether, and leaving the state. Either coincidence, or, she was just tired of people like me giving her much-deserved sass.
Chestnuts roasted by Rob @ 09/10/2006 3:51 PM
i had a US History teacher that looked and acted like Kathy Bates in Misery.
there was a substitute in elementary school that all the classes but ours loved. she put two kids in the coat closet and held the door shut. i think we got her fired.
i had this disgusting seventh grade history teacher that said ‘pacific’ instead of ‘specific.’ she was enormous and was always eating something. she was also the cheerleading coach.
my little sister had a first grade teacher that would tower over the students and yell. she apparently made half the class cry daily.
Oh yeah, my first grade teacher gave more homework than any teacher i’ve ever had (up till ms.Stewart that is).
Chestnuts roasted by Mightystalfos @ 09/10/2006 4:26 PM
squee: The sad thing is, the incident with the wandering child was only about three years ago. And the teacher still has her job, although the child’s mother did pull her out of that pre-k class after the incident.
how could i forget Mrs. Planas-Canti? she was the Spanish teacher in my middle school who also taught my french class.
I’m pretty sure you don’t roll your R’s in french. but to this day my friends and i still mock her threats to give us detention referrals: “i’ll give you a D-ARRRRRRRRRRRRR”
Chestnuts roasted by brianfax @ 09/10/2006 4:49 PM
Rob, good for you for standing up for yourself! I wish I’d been that collected as a child. I was more likely to cry and want to hide. ;p
Chestnuts roasted by LemonWitch @ 09/10/2006 5:57 PM
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Posted by Matt on 09/09/2006. E-mail me!
Chestnuts roasted by 
I’ve had a few really great teachers over the years. I still admire them to this day, but they are more of the exception, not the rule.
I had a 4th grade teacher who was really old. During summers, she’d travel to a different place, then constantly bring it up during the next school year. At times, she’d try to one-up a student who talked about their experience by bringing up an exciting experience on one of her trips. It was as if she was the only person who travelled ever. Also, she was incredibly forgetful, but believed she still knew everything. When she messed up on something important in her lesson, she’d ignore it and move on. She’d constantly forget and mix up kids names unapologetically (she messed up mine at least ten times, even when I had just said it). I did not know the name Stephen was so difficult. I guess she thought Joseph was a much better name for me.
I had a 9th grade math teacher that was the tough jock/athletic type who also taught gym sometimes. He knew math, but the way he taught it was so bland and by-the-book. At the beginning of class, he’d read out a lesson and write a few notes on the board, then sit at his desk the rest of the class unwilling to help anyone. Most of all, he was incredibly moody (liked to yell). I remember one time, I accidently submitted the wrong page of a minor assignment. When I told him, he said “Oh, ya think?” in what had to be the most condescending tone in the history of the world and sarcastically took in my other page like he was holding gold. What I didn’t get was his best friend was another teacher, who was widely known as the best in the school.