I come from a family of teachers, and I’ve found it very inspiring how they all try their best to truly leave a mark on their students.
But of course, some marks left are not the ones we want.
Take for instance these:
Buckle up, cause Reddit has got some seriously intense tales of academic woe.
1. Ebb and flow
A high school writing teacher who circled the word “ebbed” and said “not a word!” in bright red ink, this was a creative writing assignment that I was very nervous to show her.
Then when I showed her it was a word in a thesaurus she got upset and asked what brand the thesaurus was as if I had an incorrect book.
She never liked me and I never really understood why.
– LittleLulu333
2. The shining star
In her defense (1993) she was a middle school English teacher.
She tried to explain to me that the Sun wasn’t a star. I argued back and she got mad because I wasn’t the “teacher”.
You know that feeling when you get real p**sed because you know you’re in the right? That was me. But I just ate it.
I wished I would have followed through because I would have loved if she had to explain to her boss how the sun wasn’t a star.
Her explanation was that it’s a “sun” , not a “star”.
– GaryNOVA
3. The book shamer
The worst were the teachers who would take books away from me and hold me up for ridicule because they disagreed or didn’t approve of the genre or subject material.
I was always into science fiction and horror genres and many of them didn’t consider it true literature worthy of reading.
I remember my father getting into it with one of the teachers who disapproved of Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, to which he pointed out it was on the required reading list of a lot of major universities.
Dad was awesome like that, and chewed the teacher and principle out for having the temerity to try to stop any student who wanted to read, regardless of what the genre was.
– LovesMeSomeRedhead
4. Pushing up
High school gym class.
We were doing some kind of push-up test. Teacher decided he was going to watch ME the whole time and not lay an eye on anyone else.
I do a couple push-ups and he tells me my form is wrong. This repeats over and over with him constantly telling me my form isn’t right until I had completed at least 30 “wrong push-ups.” At that point I was too exhausted to even do a single “right” one, so he failed me.
– crash—-
5. The captive
She tied me to my chair.
I was hyperactive, and also 5.
She would also hold my hand during formation in the mornings and squeeze so hard my tiny knuckles would crack.
When I’d instinctively try to pull my hand away, she’d hold onto it and smile at me and ask me if it hurt.
Makes me smile to think she’s probably dead by now. Witch.
– MajorasInk
6. The bad grader
I had an English teacher and I was convinced he gave me low grades just for the f**k of it. Everyone else thought I was just full of it.
One assignment I gave it to one of the ‘class pets’ to look at and I asked for improvements. They showed me their assignment and said “there isn’t much of a difference here”. When I read it the only difference was the odd word choice (synonyms) but the structure was the same.
They got 80s and 90s and I got 60s.
I had no problem sharing my score and the smarter kids starting grilling the teacher on the methods of how he evaluated.
– [deleted user]
7. The memory stealer
My biology teacher took my yearbook away right before summer break. I didn’t put it away in time.
That year my parents divorced and I was moving away. I told her this after class and she didn’t care. She kept it until the last day. I didn’t get any signatures.
Ended up throwing it away. What a witch.
– Funny-Tangelo
8. The riddler
Before I left that course I had a college teacher who spent 80% of her time digressing and in the remaining 20% she talked in riddles.
Her course was the one with the lowest grades but it was also considered the easiest by the other teachers because the course was about how to research history so for the teachers who already knew this stuff (because an actual good teacher was there for them) it was easy as f**k.
Turns out that if a teacher actually tries as hard as humanly possible to make her class hard then it will be hard who knew?
The moment I realized how bad she was was when we actually went to ask older students about wtf we were supposed to do and they literally did not have an answer even after going through the f**king class themselves, I believe their exact words were “just roll with it that women has never made sense while teaching and she never will”.
The fun part is that if I write her name on google she actually appears as a quite successful person but she either has 0 f**king clue on how to teach students or she likes to make their lives a living h**l.
All the other teachers knew how to teach (crazy standard here I know) but she was just that.
– HistoricalMaize
9. The dress code
Tried to get me suspended for a dress code violation when I was 15.
I was in the only dress I owned at the time because I was going to my best friends funeral. She’d committed suicide 2 days before.
I was crying and begging her to just let me stay til my mom picked up my remaining friends to go to the funeral.
Said teacher then took me to the office and I had to sit in the front office under a tarp til my mom picked me up.
– reinnsreinn
10. The hypocrite
She tried to fail half the class after she showed up late or not at all.
She also never gave any assignments or taught us anything really.
Never even took up half the two hours we were supposed to be in class. We were always let out early.
She threw together a couple rando assignments online, never told us about them, and then tried to fail the students who didn’t do the assignments.
I fought her all the way to the school president and got passed. Eat grass Belanger.
– Neat-Possibility-761
11. The drinker thinker
She was an alcoholic and threw out the entire classes final assignments.
She then proceeded to accuse 20/25 kids we all collectively didn’t hand it in.
Another teacher called the principal in because of how loud we were arguing with her.
Eventually we called her a drunk and asked the principal to smell her thermos.
They both left and we didn’t see her the rest of the semester.
– Siguard_
12. The inquisitor
My 8th grade English teacher never published grades and every time I’d ask her about it she’d answer with, “I don’t know, what do you think it is?”
BITCH IF I KNEW WOULD I BE ASKING?!
– tiny_dino_
13. Midnight cowboy
When a teacher called me at 12:30 AM to complete an excel sheet because it was his deadline to submit it tomorrow. I did it and sent it back. Didn’t say thank you in text. No worries.
I go to school the next day and he’s trashing me in front of another teacher for no reason.
I don’t expect him to start praising me like I’m the messiah, at the least don’t do this.
– OppositeCareless
14. The silent treatment
I had a sub in 3rd grade (I was maybe 8 years old) that expected us to be completely silent at all times.
Someone asked the guy next to you if they knew the date? Had to ask to use the restroom? She punished the whole class because someone said something or made a sound and that’s unacceptable.
When she left the room she would stop at the office and eavesdrop on us through the PA system and punish us when she returned if we weren’t quiet while she was gone.
I remember her telling us how disappointing we all were to her- to this day when I think of her it’s usually got a “f**k you” attached to it.
Can’t be bothered to remember her name.
– WouldRatherWrite
15. The Canadian winter
Ok so allow me to set the scene for all of you.
It’s the middle of a cold, Canadian winter, and I’m a kindergartener.
I go to the bus, like any normal day, when a teacher who’s standing in front of the bus making sure the right kids get on (VERY ironic) “doesn’t recognize me” because of a haircut (it was a decently big change but it was also a f**king HAIRCUT) and decided I had to WALK home. In a blizzard.
Then again every teacher in that school could have one of these stories, but this one always stuck out to me.
– treeclimber77
Not exactly shining examples of what it means to impart knowledge, eh?
Who’s the worst teacher you ever had?
Tell us in the comments.