Worst teacher you've ever had?

[h1r0ll3r]

Had an English Lit professor in college. She was about 6-7 months pregnant at the time and SUPER crabby. What drove me insane about her was that she never looked up at the class. She always wrote on transparencies and put them up on the projector. Never took role, never looked at us and she only talked at us, never to us. Basically she buried her head in the sand and rambled on forever. For a normal class this wouldn't have been so bad however this was a 3 hour long night class. It literally was the longest 3 hours ever spent in a classroom. Oh and she never let the class have a break like we're supposed to. Only breaks she took was when she needed to piss.

Great to know the tuition you paid is being squandered properly by your college hiring fresh off the boat, n00b grad students to teach classes for the first time in their life.

 

[tktaylor1]

I had an 80 year old math teacher who stood in front of the class and read word for word from the book. Never wrote anything on the board and refused to help you. I dropped that class really quick.

 

[strider42]

In fifth grade, my teacher gave me a C on a book report I did on an abrdiged version of the story fo ulysses. I thought I nailed it. To this day, I have no idea what I did wrong, and I got a C on it. I had never gotten anythigng lower than an A in any class before. It soured me on school, and was one of the catalysts to me being a slacker in school. It wasn't the only factor, but for 5th grade me, I was so disappointed I stopped caring as much. Maybe if the teacher had told me what I did wrong I would have been ok with it. I still don't think I deserved that grade.

In College, I had a TA who was just insufferable. She never seemed ot know what she was talking about in discussion section, was abrasive to deal with. I hated her. There was an elderly lady in my class, who I grant was very annoying, but she asked a question about some of the symbolism in Edmund Spencers the Faerie Queen, and asked if two characters represented Adam and Eve. The TA looked at her like she was on crack and basically berated her in front of everyone. IN the next lecture with teh professor, he starts going on about how these same two characters represent Adam and Eve. That was fun to watch her, the person working on her doctorate and feeling pretty superior about that fact, get schooled by the 60 year old woman who knew next to nothing about literature.

 

[samiwas]

if (capitalize) you thought racism was over, it isnt (use apostophe)! dael (capitalize) visser (capitalize) is the biggest idiot in the world, (use period at the end of a sentence) shes (capitalize and use an apostrophe) insensitive and shes (use apostophe) a terrible lecturer and still thinks shes (use apostophe) the best thing to ever hit this earth, (use period at the end of a sentence) i (capitalize) mean (use comma to separate) who stands infront (missing space between words) of class n (not a word) reads the hol (not a word) time n (not a word) spends 15 mins (please use full words) reading , n (not a word) ends the 45min(please use full words) lecture at 15mins(dammit, I said use full words) , n wen (come on, niether of these is a word) we have ques (again, not a word) , she says she doesnt (missing apostrophe) know shel (missing an apostrophe AND spelled wrong anyway) get back to us! im (capitalize and use an apostrophe) sorry (use comma to separate) thats (use apostrophe) messed up, koz (yet again, not a word) she does nothing !(odd space) i (capitalize) dont (use an apostrophe) even know why shes (use an apostrophe) even a lecturer! o wait! (All wrong) its koz the department is racist and favours her sorry ass gosh these people make me mad! (I'm giving up on this last sentence...too many errors.)

Wow. Good to see that school is doing you well. Maybe you should pay more attention to those teaching you. Maybe the problem...is YOU.

Now, back on topic:

In high school, I had several teachers I didn't like. But when I look back, I realize it was me who was the problem. Althogh, one of those classes involved a level of memoirzation that I just could not accomplish. I actually got a 4 on a test. Yes...a 4.

I had two teachers I despised in college. The first was my Calculus 3 teacher. He walked in on the first day of class wearing a pair of dirty, wrinkley pants, and an oversized flannel shirt. It looked like he hadn't slept or showered in days. He honestly looked like someone you'd see standing next to the subway station shaking a cup. After muttering through the class attendance roll, he started teaching right away without ever talking about the class or anything. The worst was that he went straight into complex equations, writing something like

[COLOR="DimGray"]y' = (u'v - uv')/v2 = (3x2(x) - x3(1))/x2 = 2x3/x2 = 2x[/COLOR]

on the board, going straight into getting us to break it down. The whole class just stared at each other in disbelief. I transferred to a different teacher, but at the same time of day, right next door. Within a week, there were only a handful of students left in his class.

The other one was a literature teacher in a class called "Great Books II". Now, any class named "Great Books II" is going to be filled with abysmally boring novels. I'm already a slow reader as it is, so reading complex novels is a lot of work for me. She assigned an average of 60 pages a night, 5 nights a week, with 120 or more pages on the weekend. And there was a quiz every day on the material from the night before. 60 pages of those books would take me an average of three hours a night, especially if I had to know the material for a quiz. At this point, I had dropped out of engineering (read the calculus story above!) and transferred into theater production, which is what I had always wanted to do anyway (and still do 17 years later). I told her that I simply could not cover this much material because of the amount of time it took, especially because, as a theater major, I had responsibilities during the shows we were producing (and *gasp* other classes' homework!). Her response: "Theater?!? You people don't do anything!" I basically told her to screw off. I ended up passing, but barely.

 

[tktaylor1]

if you thought racism was over, it isnt! dael visser is the biggest idiot in the world, shes insensitive and shes a terrible lecturer and still thinks shes the best thing to ever hit this earth, i mean who stands infront of class n reads the hol time n spends 15 mins reading , n ends the 45min lecture at 15mins, n wen we have ques , she says she doesnt know shel get back to us! im sorry thats messed up, koz she does nothing ! i dont even know why shes even a lecturer! o wait! its koz the department is racist and favours her sorry ass gosh these people make me mad!

Please write with some sort of correct grammar. That was atrocious.

 

[jav6454]

if you thought racism was over, it isnt! dael visser is the biggest idiot in the world, shes insensitive and shes a terrible lecturer and still thinks shes the best thing to ever hit this earth, i mean who stands infront of class n reads the hol time n spends 15 mins reading , n ends the 45min lecture at 15mins, n wen we have ques , she says she doesnt know shel get back to us! im sorry thats messed up, koz she does nothing ! i dont even know why shes even a lecturer! o wait! its koz the department is racist and favours her sorry ass gosh these people make me mad!

Seriously... my brain lost some neurons trying to decipher this...

 

[tktaylor1]

Image

This made me LOL so hard.

 

[Synchromesh]

There were 2 teachers in High School I hated with a passion. First one was sophomore English. She did kick me out of the class to another English class which I successfully failed and ended up in summer school. Learned my lesson and never failed important classes in High School again.

But the one that takes the cake is math teacher I had my senior year. She just disliked me for whatever reason. Once she left me after school because "I took too long in the bathroom". The fact that school was under construction and I was forced to walk to another wing because closest bathroom was closed didn't matter to her.

While I was in her class she asked me what I wanted to do after High School. I told her the truth: I wanted to study Computer Science at University X. She laughed at me and said there is no way.

Well, I proved to old bag wrong. She failed me twice my senior year because despite my attempts to drop her class my idiotic guidance chancellor talked me into staying. So I ended up in a community college where after working hard I successfully transferred to University X from first try and graduated with BS in CS a few years later. Now I really want to meet this woman and throw my diploma in her face...

 

[Mord]

All of them. Hated school. Got expelled.

I'm curious how you managed it?

By the end my attendance was around 50%, I'd been caught a couple of times playing with fire/explosive and I pretty much did what I wanted.

They still didn't kick me out, which looking back was frankly a miracle.

 

[quasinormal]

Back in the sixties, our one size fits all educational system (maybe it still does) recorded in the roll book, between the students name and attendence, his/her tested intelligence quotient.

We had some psycho teachers.

 

[Mord]

Back in the sixties, our one size fits all educational system (maybe it still does) recorded in the roll book, between the students name and attendence, his/her tested intelligence quotient.

We had some psycho teachers.

Ours did too, though it was disguised as our CAT scores.

We wern't supposed to know that, though I was friends with the IT staff so saw the database it was all held on then noticed those same numbers next to our names.

I'm fairly suspicious that that's exactly why I got away with the **** I did, they knew I was bright so wanted to keep me around without being demotivated further by excessive punishment.

 

[iBlue]

This miserable, wrinkled old hag that made her dislike for a 4th grader far too obvious. I think I asked too many questions, usually because I felt she was repeating herself and I hoped to get to the important bits faster so we could move on to more stuff! I may have also enjoyed extra time for daydreaming. ;-)

One of the best students in that class was a girl named (IIRC) Jenny. Jenny was nice and she liked me in spite of us both being clever in very different ways. Neither of us struggled with the studies but I struggled with the urge to push the boundaries. Jenny did not.

One day Jenny told me that our teacher had specifically told her not to talk to me and to pass that on to anyone that would listen. She said I was spoiled and "trouble". Now maybe that would end up being sort of true in later years but I find it appalling that a teacher thought it appropriate to tell other students to avoid another student, I suppose because she didn't like her efficiency challenged. My brand of enthusiasm was clearly not her preference.

I also remember something shady going on with how she graded me but I can't recall all the details. My mother sussed it out at some point and I think Mrs. Hag may have been called up on it, along with her telling students not to talk to me. Fortunately her recommendations went mostly ignored and my elementary school life was unaffected but really, what an unprofessional teacher. She's dead now. (thanks, google.)

 

[roadbloc]

I'm curious how you managed it?

By the end my attendance was around 50%, I'd been caught a couple of times playing with fire/explosive and I pretty much did what I wanted.

They still didn't kick me out, which looking back was frankly a miracle.

I was an awful person to know back then. I was hooked onto a lot of illegal drugs and had no care for my future. They decided enough was enough when I pushed a piano down some stairs in the music block (thus breaking the piano) in one of my many selfish diva-ish fits of rage.

 

[Mord]

I was an awful person to know back then. I was hooked onto a lot of illegal drugs and had no care for my future. They decided enough was enough when I pushed a piano down some stairs in the music block (thus breaking the piano) in one of my many selfish diva-ish fits of rage.

That'd do it, never really did much property damage, though I once did set a fire door on fire.

 

[Macman45]

I Had A Biology

And physics guy in high school. He wasn't old, but nobody understood a damn word he said....He mumbled and mumbled, and then out of the blue he'd through a Chalk Duster at somebody.

He was there for 2 semesters and then "Vanished"

We later found out he used to drink a bottle of whiskey for breakfast, one for lunch...etc.

Shame, because I really like science now, and maybe if I'd had a decent teacher I would have carried it on.

 

[andalusia]

She's dead now. (thanks, google.)

Google killed your fourth grade teacher?

 

[Firestar]

I remember my sixth grade science teacher. She was just awful. About everything we did in class had absolutely nothing to do with science (one time we just made s'mores). Then, on our tests, there was stuff that she didn't even teach us (although most of it was common sense).

For semester finals, the other teacher on the other team (all grades were split into two teams) gave out 6 pound bags of gummy bears for anyone who got an A.

 

[Apple Hobo]

In elementary school, I had a couple of barbarous, inept teachers who punished me by having me stand somewhere for the entire school day without a break or any lunch (this kind of punishment would go on for days). One of them made me do this outdoors, and the other made me do this in the back of the classroom.

I had one intern/assistant/substitute "teacher" in middle school who, looking back in hindsight, I think was a nympho who wanted to do very naughty things to me...though nothing ever happened.

My business computers teacher in high school was pretty awful. The guy was always surly and yelling at people, and he almost always spoke in a loud, stern tone of voice. However, the guy was really friendly and laid-back with the female students, and it was so obvious to all of us. I remember several days when he would just have us read the crappy, outdated textbook by ourselves while he sat at his desk, openly flirting with underage girls. Most of us barely scraped by with the lowest passing grade. A couple of years later, he got busted for some kind of inappropriate conduct with a female student. Surprise!

Had some crappy professors in college, too. This all makes me really appreciate the good teachers & professors I've had throughout the years.

 

[Doctor Q]

I had an awful high school biology teacher. Dulled my interest in a subject I should have liked.

I had an awful high school English teacher, who preferred to be a drama teacher instead, so she taught us drama instead of English.

For contrast, see the Who was your best school teacher? thread.

 

[juanm]

She wasn't my teacher, but I went to the same school years before and she already had the - well deserved - reputation of being nuts

One day, to explain the problems of bad eating habits, she made a slightly chubby 10-year-old girl climb on the teacher's table, lift her t-shirt to show her belly, and started a speech that went something like this: "See, if you don't eat healthy, you'll end up obese like this girl is! Her parents are to blame! She's fat because they give her the wrong food"

 

[Macman45]

That

She wasn't my teacher, but I went to the same school years before and she already had the - well deserved - reputation of being nuts

One day, to explain the problems of bad eating habits, she made a slightly chubby 10-year-old girl climb on the teacher's table, lift her t-shirt to show her belly, and started a speech that went something like this: "See, if you don't eat healthy, you'll end up obese like this girl is! Her parents are to blame! She's fat because they give her the wrong food"

These day's i's abuse........poor kid, that is the kind of stuff that you never forget. Like my old man throwing a knife at me. I'm 55 but that sticks. I don't know how we stop this kind of thing...What really scares the C****P out of me is the fact that the disowned and disenfranchised are those that will run our countries when we are old.

Scary.

 

[OutThere]

Despite the fact that this an ancient thread dragged back in the most bizarre of ways...


My AP Statistics teacher senior year of high school was a real piece of work. I was, admittedly, not the most diligent student, particularly once I'd been accepted to a selection of colleges, but I did manage a B or B- in her class. Not terrible at a very challenging school. After a year of general unpleasantness and mediocre teaching, she told me to my face, however, that she expected me to get a 1 or 2 (out of 5, which would have been considered atrociously bad at my school) on the AP exam, I got her back by getting a 4.

But, what really took the cake, was what she did a few weeks later at the senior dinner. Being a boarding school, families and parents arrive the night before graduation, and the school puts on a giant dinner for all of the graduates and their guests—150 graduates with as many as 1000 guests. A formal banquet with multiple courses, awards presentations and music, it's a celebration of all the students graduating and a generally joyful affair. Well, my lovely math teacher searched through the crowd and found my parents (and extended family members), explicitly to tell them that their son had done extremely poorly on her final exam, and was generally a terrible student.

What. A. Bitch. I never figured out what I did to piss her off like that, other than getting a C on her final exam.

 

[ender land]

The only teacher who came close was my psychology teacher in high school.

One great example - she had a question on a test about where the value of a graph being highest was, but called it "slope." After I got it wrong (because slope != value) and asked her about it, she was adamant on being wrong and didn't believe me until she went and asked the math department.

Man, that class was only endurable because my friends and I were both in it

 

[Hastings101]

I had my worst teacher during my freshman year of college. She taught Early U.S. History and every class she would do the exact same thing: take entire chapters from the text book, throw it on a powerpoint, and then read the powerpoint to us.

The worst part was that it wasn't like she was a grad student doing this for one semester, she was a permanent staff member that had been there for around ten years and had been teaching the class for a while.

 

[athens]

My Grade 11 math teacher was by far the worst teacher I had ever had. I was getting 95% in Math 10 and in Math 11 I was at 35% by the time I stopped going to that class. When I made up for it the next year with a different teacher I was back in the 90's. The mans teacher style was terrible. I had no desire to be in class.