Who was the worst teacher you've ever had?

Mr.Finnerty…come on down!!!
History teacher, stank of sweat, wore his peejays under his poor excuse for a suit.
Also wore three watches on each wrist, he had a shoe in the drawer of his desk which he threatened unruly pupils with by way of a bum spanking.
We all just laughed at him mostly, daft old bugger.

Was that High School?

Seniors, age 12–16, I guess that equates to your high school.

My grade 6 teacher. She put me in a dark closet for 6 months in the furnace room. I was let out at the end of the day. She was teaching grammar and there and their. I was stressed out and I slept most of the time. Which was welcomed because I played video games and watched porn at night on the french channel.

So, did you tell your mother?

Yes and she got me out of the closet and she offered to let me live with her. I should have taken her up on the offer. My dad had cable and a car and my own room, so I made a poor choice, but when I turned 18 I moved back with her for 17 years.

Ms. Dubinek in High School. She never bathed as it was against her natural beliefs. She also believed she was an Indian princess. To be near her could honestly relate to standing near an open septic tank.

A finance teacher in college with a very similar attitude to @Dutchess_III ‘s. She was supposed to be outstanding in her field, had received numerous awards and accolades and had been active in Washington D.C. for many years

If you, or anyone, asked ANY question about something she was lecturing on her pat answer was “Well, obviously you weren’t paying attention.” in a voice that dripped of disdain. If you asked for help or a clarification on an assignment her answer was “Well, obviously you have not been doing your homework.” in the same tone of voice.

Our first major exam was a disaster. When the test was completed two-thirds of the class immediately went to their respective deans and dropped the class. I was among them. Since it was several days past time for add/drop, it had to be made up another semester for every one of us but even that was better than staying in there and suffering the abuse for the remainder of the semester.

She did not return the following term.

We called him Derek and I don’t know his surname. He was tall and incompetent and spent his time standing awkwardly in front of the class fidgeting nervously. Neither we nor he had any idea why he was there.

When I was attending the School of Hard Knocks, Mr. Otherpeople Dontgivetwoshitsaboutyou was a bit of a dick. He taught me a lot but the lessons sucked.

My primary school teacher.
Accused me of plundering the christmas calendar.

There was this art teacher in high school who thought his shit didn’t stink. What a dick!

Middle school history teacher by the name of Mrs. Hamilton who had an obsession with Islam. Learning about Islam was very intriguing but it was later on when it all became too much. Like when she made us write essays on why the Ottoman Empire should have won WW1 (not the central powers, just the Ottoman Empire), another essay on how Islam inspired the US Constitution, and then something about how Muslims were the ones behind almost all scientific discoveries up until the Ottoman Empire fell (while I’m aware that they contributed a lot, I would not go anywhere near as far as what Mrs. Hamilton declared such as that they found pi).

Wow!

Recently one of my HS teachers died. Everyone was singing his praises. All I remember about him was he was forever hitting on me. It was gross.

There were a few memorably bad teachers. One maths teacher who was seriously hopeless. H He wouldn’t let us write down the questions from the board. Just our answers. So when you came to revise for exams, you had no idea what the heck the answers responded to. He couldn’t explain anything. He made everything seem so difficult. We were in one of the top maths groups and he just confused us. In our final year of high school a group of us refused to go to his class. We sat in the hallway demanding we be allowed to sit in on the class of the teacher who taught the kids in the group below ours. He was fabulous. He made everything so crystal clear.

Language teachers were always the worst. There was the one who smelled terrible and was totally useless and the lady who was very sweet, but couldn’t control the class. I studied French from aged 7 to 16. Can’t speak French. I don’t think we made it beyond the first introductory book across the whole time.

Wow! That was pretty hard to choose. I’ve met a lot of horrible teachers during my school life. I have a feeling they only came to torture students for their pleasure, not to teach.

There was a high school chemistry teacher who was very arrogant. He was a good teacher, sure, but he seemed to think he had more knowledge than anyone else. As a result he was very unforgiving, insulting at every mistake students made. He often gave lots of ridiculously difficult exercises, and when we couldn’t do it, he was like: “You fool, you can’t do such an easy task? Hahaha!”.

But he was no match for the lead teacher. For a lead teacher, he was utterly irresponsible. He always said my class was lazy and disorganised, but he didn’t at least help us handle class activity at all. He didn’t even know which activities the class engaged in. And he was also very narrow-minded. Anyone who had different opinions from him was perceived as “rebeller”. He once wrote a horrible report for me, basically accusing me of being stupid and irresponsible and even asking me to “change school”. Sure, I might not study well or very active in school activities, but was he more responsible?

Oh @Mimishu1995 reminded me to mention one of my home economics teachers. Ahhh she was horrible. She would make us do her washing in class. She would also scream at people. I used to spend my whole time in her class shaking and in fear that I’d forget to follow some instruction. I forgot to put the eggs in one dish and she grabbed the bowl and slammed it down on the table while screaming ‘what is this!’ She was a witch. Some people should not be teachers.

My sister was 3 years older than me and I had to deal with the same teacher that told my sister she was “Dressed like a streetwalker.” In 6th grade. Wearing clothes that my mother had made. Yeah, mom went to school the next day and forced the teacher to apologize in front of the class. I was proud of that until, 3 years later I had to deal with the same battleax.

In college I had a Spanish teacher that basically said, first day of class, “This class is entirely too big and my first goal is to get ⅓ of you to drop it while you still can.” The next day she asked me a question in Spanish that I couldn’t answer, ripped me a new one, caused me to drop the class, and, ultimately, kept me from having a BA in English.

Sophomore year English, we had a lazy ass teacher that only had a few tests and a couple of essays. But a ton of “extra credit”. I had A’s on all my stuff, so why do extra credit?

Turns out he used all the extra credit to raise the curve. He gave us two months to read a book that took me a week, so he was also mad that I did Trig homework in class. He gave me a D. My mom ha dot go down to have a talk with him to raise it to a C.

Long story. My kindergarden teacher was a wicked hag who who lied to me and tormented me.The only thing that I learned was I hated her and school.

The only one I remember—and I remember her quite vividly, though it’s been many decades—was a nursery school teacher who once told me I was drawing a person all wrong (arms and legs sticking directly out of an oval) and also once made me sit by myself in the play yard because I wouldn’t let a little classmate play with a recently acquired birthday gift.

I related these memories recently to a friend who attended the same school at the same time—she’s now a psychologist—and she sighed and said she too remembered how insensitive and unkind this teacher was to children.

The best teacher I recall was a college English prof who praised my writing and encouraged me to leave Texas and go to NYC. I did that and it changed my life!

That word “worst” really set my gears turning. So before I overheat, I must choose among the worst at teaching, the worst personality, the most eccentric, obnoxious, least suited to his or her field, etc. But I thank you for the question, because it forced me to review the list and there are some REAL characters enrolled on it. I would give anything to be allowed to assemble them together in their primes to crew some sort of enterprise—- say a pirate ship or gun running ring. But it’s tough to conclude the worst, because when I think about it, I learned a LOT from the bad ones. In fact the bad ones provided some of the most important lessons of my life. Several of them were so amazing to watch that I looked forward to being there.

Even including all of the wishy-washy, make-it-up-as-you-go Theology teachers I had at my Catholic high school, the worst high school teacher was my junior year Precalculus teacher. Haven’t I already explained him here on Fluther?
Not only was the class a joke, he was a jerk. He’d spend the first 10–20 minutes of the class on his computer doing God-knows-what. Then, he’d get up, mumble at a powerpoint for about 15–20 minutes, assign the homework, and go back to his computer. Some classes we would spend playing Sporcle and other non-math related things. Everyone loved him because of this, but I actually liked math and he didn’t care to teach anything. HIs tests would be mostly objective, and in a T/F section, the first 5 were A. True, B. False. The next 5 were A. False B. True. I got all of the last five wrong, showing him what tripped me up, and he responded by saying “Well, you have to be careful next time!” GAHH!
One day, after coming back from lunch, I asked to use the bubbler, which was right across the hall. He said “Why? You just got back from lunch!” and I said i wasn’t thirsty then, and it will only take a few seconds, etc…Well, we argued for at least 5 minutes. It ended up in me being able to use the bubbler. I returned before anyone could notice I was gone. What a dick.
I ended up getting a B in that class, my only B in math. Every day as I was coming out of my Spanish class, I dreaded heading down the hall to his room—117, the one on the very end—and having to deal with his blandness. For such a shitty teacher, I’m surprised he was even lucky enough to have his own room. I wonder if he still teaches there. I hope he doesn’t.

Tenure can be hell.

Does tenuring even happen in private schools?

IDK.

^^ Assuming we are talking about a private high school, the answer is only as long as the administration likes them. If there are enough people complaining (parents or grandparents who are paying tuition) don’t like them, they’ll get the boot.

Re: @talljasperman
You forget, you were in grade two only.
That after informing me of that treatment that I showed up a the school unannounced , taking the School Principal in hand to the furnance room where we opended the door and seeing that there placed was a school desk ( unoccupied as yet)..he got the messege and from there the teacher got called out to explain. She was repremanded and I never saw her again.
I don’t think that six months of this treatment occurred possibly shorter period of time before we took care of people like that teacher who should not have been teaching children at all.

Worst teach I had was in grade ten where a Priest was so tempermental that he grabbed students out of there desks. ( he grabbed my arm and swung we out of my desk because I laughed at his clumsyness in walking into a glass pane doorway. ( as did all the other classmates who responded in kind as well) .
He continued the abuse by demanding that I write Him a story, outlining why I laughed?
I did a scathing story which mocked his temperment which I was reading aloud to his beloved Senior class!
After the laughter died down…..ha ha,,,,he tore up my story and demanded another?
I refused and walked out of his clutches. (he was not my home room teacher at all).
He had no control over me and I let him know that clear enough.
For years he would snear at me in the school hallway…while I chuckled under my breath.
I was one who got away…and that bothered him the most.
Stand up for yourself against injustice. Iwas just a sixteen year old at that time.

Technically the one that had me make out with her in front of the class that I mentioned in a thread some months ago.

Boy, you and your son wind up in the worst situations, @Inspired_2write!

Mrs. Ducharme. 7th grade Algebra. I was a very shy, sensitive child who was hopeless at math. She thought it would be good exercise to force me to stand at the chalk board in front of the whole class and work out a math problem that I obviously could not do. She made me stand there and stand there and stand there, even though I told her I was unable to solve the equation. She made me stand there in front of everyone until I cried. I’m tearing up a little bit right now remembering the humiliation of it.

I wish my adult self could go back and help my 12 year old self walk up to her and say, “Look lady, you know I don’t understand this stuff. You’re teaching method hasn’t worked up to this point. I probably need a private math tutor not a lesson in humiliation! Bitch!”

I suffered through math classes up through my first years of college. I went from C’s to D’s. Only that one particular teacher ever humiliated me though. I never got better at math, despite the fact that I put myself through the ringer studying the subject. I believe that there is something wrong with part of my brain that makes me unable to comprehend math (I can barely add and subtract even to this day) in a way that is similar to a person who has dyslexia with regards to reading and writing.

And to make matters worse, this woman wore Gauchos.

^ Dyscalculia ?

Teachers have such an impact on kid’s lives, and it distresses me to think that either they don’t realize, or they use their power in negative way.

And I suspect the poor teachers fall into both camps @Dutchess_III. Of the teachers I mentioned, only one was deliberately cruel. The teacher @Kardamom mentions also sounds deliberately cruel. Those people would be sad and nasty in any profession. I’d be surprised if they care about the long lasting damage they can cause to a person’s psyche.

@Earthbound_Misfit The weird thing about Mrs. Ducharme, though, was that I don’t think it was her intention to be cruel. All of this was done without a stern word from her, and she had a big supportive smile on her face. She just kept saying, “Just work it out, I know you can do it.” All said with a big smile. I really think she was incredibly naive, and didn’t understand that different children learn in different ways, or that shy people would rather dive into a pool of poop rather than to be singled out in front of their peers and made to cry.

Thank God, or Dog, or whomever, that I grew out of my shyness. Actually I kind of forced myself out of it, because it wasn’t very fun or useful. How did I do it? I have a friend who is the complete opposite of shy. She’s super fun and seems to be able to disarm people and everybody enjoys her company. I started emulating her, by making a habit of making conversation with total strangers wherever I happened to find myself. It started in the grocery store, with elderly people. I would purposely walk up to an older person and just start asking questions, such as, “Oh, those apples in your cart look lovely, what are you planning to make with them?” I found out that older folks actually enjoy speaking with people. After awhile it became second nature for me. Now I can even walk right up to gorgeous men, young, old and middle aged, and start talking to them without worrying about (or caring) that I might sound like a dork. It has added a depth to my life that I never would have had if I had continued to be shy. Shy is different than being introverted. Shy is a fear of looking like a fool in front of people, introversion is a preference to not be around people.

As I vaguely recall, either that day or the next, she didn’t actually apologize, but she said that I could come and ask her for help if I was having trouble. What she didn’t realize was that because she had just humiliated me in front of 40 of my peers (most likely one of whom I had a crush on at the time) was the last person on earth that I would ever trust to help me with anything, and because I was very shy, there was no way I could ever ask for help. After that day, I would come to her class and feel sick to my stomach, from both fear and embarrassment.

By the way, I still have to add with my fingers. I can’t do any kind of addition in my head and subtraction is very difficult for me. Percentages, fugetaboutit. Division, no way. Not gonna happen.

Aww I want to give your inner child a huge hug now. Ms McDonald (the home ec teacher) was mean. I’m sure of that. She meant to be cruel and horrible.

I think many women struggle with maths and not because they are incapable, but because they lack the confidence to do maths. Probably because of bad experiences in their childhood! I love how you ‘beat’ your shyness. I think once you can get past the ‘they’ll think (insert whatever they’ll think here)”, then you can talk to anyone.

You’ll be able to tell me more about Ms Ducharme when I move in and we’re eating pumpkin soup :D

It’s odd. I have an extremely logical mind, but I simply cannot remember numbers. This fuels my fear of everything from operating a cash register to succeeding in math/calculus classes.

@Earthbound_Misfit We should go camping, then we could chat around the campfire : )

When I was teaching I really, really liked the opportunity to be creative. For example, I once taught my 6th grad class the concept of atoms vs compounds, by having them glue colored gumballs together to form compounds out of the atoms. Tthe white gumballs, for example, represented oxygen atoms. Blue was hydrogen. So they’d glue 2 white gum balls to one blue one to show H2O. Their favorite was baking soda—NaHCO3. I quickly ran out of oxygen!

However, when it came to math, really the only thing for it was memorization.

@Kardamom A teacher who doesn’t have the ability to empathize, to put themselves in their student’s shoes, is a bad teacher.

When my oldest was in 1st grade her teacher showed them the move “Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom.” The one where he eats the monkey brains, and pulls some guy’s heart of of his chest. Yeah. My daughter was having nightmares. When I discovered the source I called her teacher.
Her argument was, “It was so obviously fake!”
I said, “Well, to you and me it’s obvious, but we’re talking about six-year-olds! Santa is real to them! Hey….do you remember that movie “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane”? Where she served that parakeet to her sister? I was about 6 when I saw it and it just haunted me! Until I saw it again in college, then it was like, ‘Pffft!’ ”
She said, “Well, I was what is known as a child genius, so I never thought like a child.”
I’d been trying to reason with her for about 15 minutes at that point, and I just lost it then!
I yelled, “YOU’RE TEACHING THESE KIDS AND YOU HAVE NO WAY OF RELATING TO THEM??? YOU SHOULDN’T BE A TEACHER!!”

Actually, it was the old bag that supervised my student teaching. First day of class, she goes down every row, telling what kids were stupid white trash that needn’t be bothered with, and which ones had parents on the college faculty that could do the work if you road them a little bit. Being the youngest of 3 and pretty empathetic, of course, I did the opposite. Dropped out just a few credits short of a degree.

You see, she had taught, burned out and started a florist shop. When the shop failed, she ‘fell back’ on teaching. I wasn’t convinced I wanted to teach (pretty sure I didn’t) and I definitely did not want it to fall back on. There are already enough crappy teachers out there.

Rode

Mrs Freeman! The old bag that called my sister a streetwalker, in 6th grade.