Whether they know it or not, teachers have the capacity to change a student’s life. They’re there to guide us and show us right from wrong; they’re sometimes there more than a child’s parents. Other times, though, they’re nothing but monsters who clearly picked the wrong career path.
#1 Totally Worth It
When I was in the fifth grade and my little sister was in the second grade, she wanted to pick some apple blossoms for her teacher. When she presented the little bouquet to her, the teacher flipped out. She lectured her for ten minutes about why she shouldn't go on people's lawns to pick flowers, then threw the blossoms away in front of her. My sister was devastated and I found her on the playground, crying. The apple blossoms were from our apple tree, in our front yard. It was the first and last time I ever yelled at a teacher (totally worth the office referral).
#2 That Barbaric Sport
I had a teacher that was an absolute witch. She was in her early 70s in 2007. She was the cheer coach from somewhere around 1970-1990, which is when I assume she became obese. That and, at some point, took up being the trigonometry teacher. I was a football player and every time we had a game, she would tell the cheerleaders who were cheering for our game , "Ladies, you have a big night ahead of you. You’re excused from homework."
I would reply, "I’m playing the game they’re cheering for, can I get my homework excused? We have to be there an hour before the cheerleaders, and we have a team meeting after the game and showers. We leave an hour after they do." Every time, she would reply, "You know I don't support that barbaric sport. You will have your homework turned in on time tomorrow. If you can't balance football and homework then quit the team!"
#3 From That Moment
A boy in my class (about eight years old) had dyslexia. So one time, the teacher gave a dictation. He had spelled all the words wrong and she was really mad at him. She just shouted at him in the middle of the class that he should've tried harder, he didn't do well enough, etc. He was crying and from that moment on, I really hated her.
#4 Last Day At School
One time, my homework in second grade was to learn our parents’ real names. I came in and told the class my mom had a different last name than me. The teacher said, “No, her last name is Jutsu like yours and your daddy. That's what happens when you get married.” I told her that it was just me and my mom and that my dad never lived with us. She told the class that that meant they needed to pray for me and my mommy because we were going to the underworld. That was my last day at that school.
#5 I Said What I Said
I went to a Lutheran K-8 school and one of my classmates had two moms. It wasn’t an issue for most of the faculty, everyone pretty much accepted it, except for this one crabby old witch who everyone hated. We had her as a teacher in sixth grade and because it was a religious school, we eventually got around to the topic of homosexuality in class.
The teacher told us that gays and lesbians couldn’t go to heaven. Everyone immediately looked over at the kid, who says, “You know I have two moms, right?” I forget exactly what her response was but it was basically like, “I said what I said!” The building the school was in while I attended has been torn to the ground and no longer exists. I couldn’t be happier about it.
#6 Lost Respect For Her
I went to a high school that had a uniform. We were supposed to have our shirts tucked in at all times. I was walking into my English class, between bells, tucking in my shirt because it came up out of my skirt while I was taking my cardigan off. My English teacher stopped me and asked, "Were you just tucking your shirt in?" I told her I was and she promptly wrote me up for having had my shirt untucked. It was utter garbage and I lost total respect for her.
#7 Space Obsession
Little me was obsessed with two things: dinosaurs until I saw Jurassic Park , and space. I was obsessed. In third grade, we had an assignment where we had to talk about orbits. I wrote examples like the moon orbits the earth, the earth orbits the sun, and the sun orbits the Milky Way. My teacher gave me a D and refused to listen to me that what I had said was true. We didn't have computers in the classroom so there was no way to look it up. I tried to bring a book with it the next day but she blew me off. The joke’s on her though because I'm about to get my Ph.D. in astronomy.
#8 The Biggest Number
An elementary school teacher asked me what the biggest number possible is. I said numbers go on forever so there is no biggest number. The teacher told me that was stupid and proceeded to grab one of the really cheap school calculators and type in as many nines as could fit on the display. She then held it up in my face and said, "There. That's the biggest number there is." That still annoys me to this day.
#9 Dad to the Rescue
The teacher got up in the middle of my presentation, took my paper out of my hand, and in front of the entire class told me that I plagiarized my assignment from the internet. The thing is, we didn't have the internet at that time at my house. I worked through the entire assignment while talking about my ideas with my dad. It was super embarrassing. It made me feel better to learn that the next day, my dad went into class and yelled at the teacher in the staff room in front of all his peers. I didn't have a problem with that teacher afterward.
#10 Happy Valentine’s Day
In about 1966 when I was six, our class was making valentines with multiple folds. On them, we were supposed to write little Valentine’s Day messages. The teacher was wandering between the desks while scanning our projects. At one point, I guess I wrote on the wrong side of one of the folds. So, she stopped at my desk, grabbed my hand and slammed it down forcefully on the desktop. It hurt and was very embarrassing. I hope the 54 years she’s lived since then have been miserable.
#11 The List Goes On
This one teacher was the worst. He told me that I wasn't worthy of anyone's respect. He broke a kid's phone and lied about it to assistant principals. At one point, he yelled at my choir director for playing the piano while there was AP testing going on. It was her only her first year at the school and many of her students were present. The list goes on and on.
#12 Got What He Deserved
My old vice-principal confiscated my iPod because I was using it during lunch. Other students were using theirs too but he just singled me out. So, I snuck to his office while he wasn't there and took my iPod back from his drawer. After school, I went to him and asked for my iPod back. The look on his face when he opened his drawer was priceless. I was very convincing pretending to be angry that he lost my iPod. He tried to squirm his way out of it, but I was very adamant.
He ended up getting chewed out by the principal and had to buy me a new iPod, which I never even use. It's probably still in the box gathering dust in my old room. I don't need it, knowing that he suffered is more than enough. Also, I don't think I was being to mean to him since this vice-principal was known to be corrupt and took bribes. He also liked to be inappropriate with the girls.
#13 Joke’s On Them
Ugh, I’m reminded of my math teacher. Attractive women in his class always did way better and would even get help with problems during tests. The girls knew all they had to do was flirt a little and they could rock the class. Nobody believed us when we complained, but the joke’s on them because he was fired for being inappropriate with students a few years later.
#14 Secret Experiment
In my last year in high school, there was a chemistry teacher who had two different sections of the same class. Both had too many students due to amazing provincial budget management. In my class, this guy routinely called the dumb kids up to the board and made them sweat in front of everyone when they clearly didn't have an answer.
He also shouted at kids who didn't study and just generally acted like an angry loser. It was normal for kids to just walk away to drop out of it when we shuttled between the classroom and lab. I wasn't one of the dumb kids, so I didn't get many direct insults, but I ended up dropping. I was sick of being constantly stressed and angry.
At first, I figured he was just being a jerk to clear out the extra students and I hated him for that. But, I could at least understand that he was put in a bad position. I later found out about the other class. Overloaded with kids, like mine was, but no angry outbursts. He played music during quiet study times and treated everyone nicely. The guy was running an experiment without telling anyone! 26 years later, I'm still upset when I see him around the community.
#15 Sparkly Trash
I had a teacher demand I change out of my yoga pants even though they weren’t against school policy. If they were banned, you’d bet your butt she would have started a riot. She also gave me a C on a project where we were supposed to decorate masks. Everyone else got mostly As. Like, how do you even grade something that’s supposed to be artistic? Mine was simple because I didn’t have much money to spend on decorating it, but to this day, I still believe it was better than the sparkly trash some kids turned in.
#16 Terrible Assignment
I had a friend in college who really went above and beyond on a programming assignment. She thought of everything. Part of the teacher's test was trying to break the program. It was done in class as a presentation thing. The teacher couldn’t break it and marked her down for not following the rules. What my friends did was outside the scope of what was required but nowhere in the rules did say not to. If anything, she should’ve received extra points for really digging in and learning more.
#17 Kick Me Sign
I told a friend that it would be funny if we put a "kick me" sign on my brother's back, so she did it. The teacher caught her and my friend got scared and said that I made her do it. Having a known sibling rivalry with him, I got the punishment instead of her. I never told her to do it. I only said it would be funny because "kick me" signs are funny in cartoons.
The teacher made me stand in front of the whole class with my hands behind my head while everyone else got to kick me as hard as they wanted for two minutes. A whole group of relentless children gathered around me and kicked me as many times as they wanted to. As hard as they wanted to. Why? Because they were allowed to, and it was probably pretty fun to be on their side. I never told my parents because I was afraid of getting in trouble a second time. I felt like that had been punishment enough.
#18 The Worst Kind of Person
On the last day of school, my homeroom teacher took me out into the hall. She told me she thought it was her moral obligation to tell me I was a horrible person. No specifics, no advice, just I was a horrible person. I was never in trouble in school, always tried my best to be kind, and was even the valedictorian. I spent the rest of the period pretending I wasn’t crying because my friends still had a final they were studying for and needed to pass.
#19 Unsupportive Teachers
I’ve been terrible at math for as long as I can remember. At one point, I was moved up to the top class and couldn’t keep up. The teacher knew I was a donkey and would always ask me “to make sure I’m listening,” yet would laugh along with everyone else when I didn’t know an answer or would get it wrong.
#20 Revenge Fantasies
I took a very difficult chemistry class in high school. It was the kind where only one student got an A and you have you work your butt off to get a B. I maintained a B for most of the year, but I forgot to write my name on a test. The teacher was an extreme disciplinarian and gave me zero for not writing my name, which brought my grade down to an F. To get my grade back up, he allowed me to ask for extra quizzes for the entire class. Every time we’d have the quiz, he’d announce to the class that it was because of me and they could all thank me. God, the revenge fantasies I had…
#21 Stupid Reasoning
I was a child education major at a community college. I wanted to be an elementary teacher like my mom. One day in English class, my teacher was going around doing an ice breaker where everybody stood up and said their major. When I told him mine was elementary education he asked why. I said because I loved kids and he replied, “Well, so did Michael Jackson.” Let’s just say I dropped out after that.
#22 Teacher or Babysitter?
My science teacher was a lazy fool who didn't even interact with us. She'd write page numbers from a textbook on the whiteboard and not even talk to us. That is until the inspectors came. Then she'd have a wonderful interactive lesson planned for us. I was old enough to realize it was nonsense and refused to do any work unless she actually asked us to do so with her own mouth. This went on until she got my parents involved. I told them everything and they had a chat with the head about her. I don't know if anything came of it.
#23 Very Mature
I have numerous stories of teachers stepping over their boundaries and being just terrible people. I just remember how it all started with my sixth-grade teacher. She’d routinely put down an autistic student who was struggling with raising her hand and forgetting the answer to a question. She’d tell her that she didn't have to raise her hand every time that she breathed.
As a response, I told the principal and my teacher ended up finding out it was me who told on her. So, she pulled me out of class and said, "Don't you ever tell the principal about my teaching methods!" To make the story even better, my family knew her mother-in-law and her mother-in-law hated her since my teacher was notorious for throwing tantrums when her husband didn't do what she wanted.
#24 Covering Many Mistakes
Giving me a C on my final exam in maths. My grade in maths became C, when I was two points from a B. I would’ve gotten the points if my handwriting had been clearer. The teacher couldn’t see that my answer was correct and therefore never gave me the points. I notified the teacher of this, but since he only corrects one mistake each semester, he didn’t want to fix it. He gladly removed points when he noticed that he shouldn’t have given them though. A classmate of mine went from A to B in that manner.
#25 Bitter Old Wench
I moved to a new country and it was my first week at the equivalent of high school. I didn’t know the language, didn’t have friends and it was awful. On day one, I forgot my purse in a class and realized it halfway to my next one. I couldn’t figure out which way I came from, so I started crying out of frustration. Well, this witch of a teacher offered to help only to go blabber to her friend (my cousin) that I wasn’t going to make it through high school because “I was inconsolable about being lost.” Well, the joke’s on her because she’s still a bitter old wench and I’m living my life in a big city with my husband and furbaby.
#26 A Frustrating Victory
My English teacher in high school was the most disorganized person ever. She always had stuff laying all over her classroom and never knew where anything was. She lost multiple students’ papers all the time. One day, she lost my paper and told me I didn’t turn it in. Of course, I argued with her that I absolutely did. She wasn’t having it, so I got up in the middle of class, yelled at her and walked out. She called my math teacher, as that was my following class, and told me that she found my paper. It was a frustrating victory.
#27 Playing With Computers
One teacher gave me a bad end of year report out of spite because she didn't like me. She thought me using computers was equivalent to messing around with toys. I quote: "You’d rather play with computers than concentrate on schoolwork.” Incidentally, I passed her class with high grades and never caused her any trouble. Every other teacher and my headmaster commented on how hard I'd worked all year and how much I'd matured. Hmmph. The joke's on her, too. I have a career in IT now. That "playing with computers" worked out.
#28 An Honest Mistake
In elementary school, we were doing an assignment that involved coloring, and the teacher said to color something green. I colored it red and the teacher came over to me and asked why I wasn’t paying attention. She had clearly stated to color it green. I told her I did color it green and she paddled me in front of the whole class for it. Turns out, I'm color blind.
#29 I’m Still Bitter
We had to write a resume for my senior English class. When I listed the places I worked, the teacher docked me two points because she said I spelled one of the restaurants wrong by adding an "e" at the end. I told her that no, I spelled it correctly. The name was on the sign, menus, etc. She didn't believe me and refused to give me those two points back. I'm still bitter.
#30 Getting Pushed Back
My eighth-grade geometry teacher made us use IXL. IXL should not be used. What learning program penalizes you for the wrong points? It's infuriating to barely get to 90 only for the questions to get harder give you only one point. However, you’re pushed back 10-15 points for getting it wrong. IXL is not good for anyone who struggles with math.
#31 Mad By Proxy
My sister told me a story about her art teacher. Apparently, she couldn’t believe that one of her students who was an athlete was also a vegetarian. Supposedly, it’s impossible to be an athlete without consuming flesh. Also, this same teacher supposedly later revealed that she was considering a carnivore diet. That and she plans to not vaccinate her children. I’m mad by proxy.
#32 Language Conversion
In grade six, my Spanish teacher called me stupid in front of the whole class because I couldn’t roll my Rs and say red correctly in Spanish. I was so angry that I just left the room and refused to come back for the rest of the period. I took French in high school because of it and actually was really good at French. So, Señora, thanks for pushing me towards French because it actually worked out really well in my favor.
#33 Teacher-Student Confidentiality
I struggled in ninth-grade history. He showed my brother my test scores and grades, sometimes with other students in the room. This was all behind my back and without my permission. My grades are between me and the teacher, maybe parents. They are not my brother’s business and they are most definitely not the business of random kids in my brother’s class. I’m now planning to become a teacher and am very passionate about this. My kids’ grades will stay between me and them (and parents when necessary). If they want to tell someone, that’s their choice. But it definitely will not be me.
#34 That Old Hag
I was in the first grade. During recess one day, I saw these beautiful flowers at school and decided — since there were so many of them — I would just pick one and give it to my teacher. When I gave her the flower after recess she absolutely lost her mind. She threw the flower in the trash and yelled at me for damaging school property.
She then threatened to keep me after school to work in the gardens so that I could learn some respect. As a shy, sensitive little girl, I was just crying my eyes out at that point. Regardless, she just made me sit in the corner of the class for the rest of the day. If I ever see her again, I would punch that old hag.
#35 Really Not Happy
In my high school, we had to tuck our shirts in unless we were wearing a sweater. I even went and made sure with a teacher it was okay. She even asked me something like, “Why would you tuck a sweater in?” Sure enough, a few weeks later, she wrote me up for not tucking in my sweater. I was really not happy with her.
#36 Questioning Authority
I had a middle school teacher say centrifugal force from the earth’s rotation was what kept us on the ground. I argued it didn’t make sense and went up to the board to draw diagrams and explain. He told me to sit but I was stubborn and kept going until he sent me to the office. I think the principal understood my point but didn’t take my side. No real punishment or anything but tried to teach me that I shouldn’t question authority.
#37 Interesting to Think About
I had a math teacher in college who absolutely hated my class. He wouldn't answer our questions and he'd make a show of insulting people in front of the class when giving back graded tests. He had another class who he liked enough to take retirement photos with and give donuts to, and they had no issues with him. It never occurred to me that it was some sort of experiment. It’s interesting to think about how awful people might be.
#38 Throwing Paper
This one time, I was sitting at a desk with a bunch of papers that the last person who used it left behind. One of them just happened to fall to the floor. The teacher was sick, so the substitute teacher — who looked like a Karen — was there that day. I got a disciplinary report because I was "throwing paper to classmates."
#39 Basic Human Needs
I had a teacher when I was ten years old who never let me go to the restroom. Seriously, I would ask and she just wouldn't let me. So I ended up having a lot of accidents at school and my parents had to go to school and talk to her. She still never let me go, so my parents told me to just get up and leave if she didn't let me.
#40 Lying Classmates
During my first year in school, which was seventh grade, I was bullied a lot. One time in class, I told the teacher that this group of kids kept picking on me and she called them to the front. All the kids lied their butts off and said nothing was happening. She asked a kid that was sitting close to me and she lied also. As a result, I was punished and was made to sit in front of the class. I’ve never so embarrassed in my life.
#41 No Sympathy Here
One of my friends passed away from skin cancer when I was in elementary school. I told my teacher about how near the end he was and that he was going to pass in a matter of days. They took him off life support to end his suffering. My teacher responded, “That’s euthanasia, which is illegal in the U.S.” Being a dumb elementary school kid, I didn’t correct her and just accepted I didn’t know how he passed away. Now I know she was wrong.
#42 Nope, Not Yours
My eighth-grade language arts teacher constantly belittled me and called me stupid because I refused to do any work for him. Ultimately, I had enough and decided to prove to him I wasn’t stupid. I read War and Peace and wrote a lengthy analysis for his book report that went well beyond the scope of his expectations. I worked really hard on it and proudly handed it to him. He read one paragraph and said, “This isn’t your work” and promptly ripped it in half. I walked out of the class and all five miles home. That was my last day of middle school. You’re the worst, Mr. Clark!
#43 Track and Field
Everyone in the class got to go to track and field to do some sort of event, regardless of how bad they actually were at it… except me. The teacher just decided that everyone would be included in this thing, all 29 of them, except me. So while the rest of the class was out in the field area during gym class, the teacher handed me a basketball and relegated me to the outside basketball court (which was 100 yards away).
They told me to just stay there until class was over. I was there alone for an hour and a half with nothing but a basketball, slowly dying inside. I was 11 years old and far from the least athletic kid in class. You couldn't find one event for me to compete in? This happened numerous times in the lead-up to the track and field event. Everyone would go out to practice, I'd get a basketball. 19 years later and I'll never forget how isolated they made me feel.
#44 Different Kind of Paper
I had a teacher who once saw me outside of school riding my dirt bike without a helmet on. The next day in class, he told me he saw me riding without a helmet, that it was dangerous and I could lose my life. So he gave the entire class their assignment for the period. He then came to me and said my assignment was to write my own obituary as a graded assignment. I told him that happened out of school and I wasn’t going to do it. So I was sent to the principal’s office. Whatever, jerk. The principal sided with me
#45 Chill Out, Lady
During a third-grade math quiz, for some reason, I genuinely thought I heard my teacher say, “Check your work with a calculator once you’re done.” Big mistake. She saw me using it, grabbed my quiz, and said, “See, class. This is why we don’t cheat,” and ripped up my test in front of everyone. I was eight years old, chill out.
#46 Losing All Confidence
When I was eight, my teacher wanted us to make a presentation about what would you like to be when you grow up. I wanted to be a chef, but I accidentally spelled "chief.” She corrected me, but later that day, I walked past the staff room during lunch and heard her. She said, "She wrote ‘chief’ instead of ‘chef.’ I can't believe I have someone so thick-brained in my class.”
She then laughed while other teachers around laughed with her. I was frozen, but I looked inside the room. Even after I caught my teacher’s attention, she just laughed louder. I can say I didn't want to be a chef anymore and lost confidence in everything I did. All these years later and I'm still mad at my teacher.
#47 Where it Hurts Most
I was fighting with another kid in a corridor. My western civilization teacher happened to come along and break up the fight. Later, she told me she was going to deduct five points from my overall score in that class for fighting. I tried to argue that a general disciplinary problem shouldn't be punished with a lower grade in a particular class. Her response was, "I take it where it hurts the most." 32 years later, I'm still a little annoyed that she didn't acknowledge my point.
#48 You’re Still in Trouble
He caught me cursing and said that was worthy of detention. I said it was an accident and suggested an alternative punishment at the bargaining desk. I said I’d run a lap around the school in under a minute, making it back in time for class and no detention. He agreed and I sprinted downstairs, outside, through the parking lot, in the front doors, blow the administrator a kiss, fly up the front stairs, bolted my way to the end of the hallway, high-fived my bud and collapsed into my chair. I was panting, yet satisfied. The teacher congratulated me, then gave me detention for running in the halls…
#49 Total Disdain
This was in kindergarten. My teacher rolled her eyes and huffed in annoyance. She then went, “No John, leaves are not purple.” She said it with just total disdain. The question was “What colour do fall leaves turn?” As a class of five-year-olds, we were indignant. John may have been an idiot most of the time but there were bushes in the school’s front yard that went deep purple.
#50 Thanks for Nothing
I had a gym teacher in the sixth grade who did nothing when I got bullied. It happened so much it really put a damper on my class activities. I would come to him twice a week and every time, I was shooed away. I got his class again in the eighth grade without the bullies. The first thing he said to me was, “I hope you’re planning to actually do something this year.” I legit had plans to follow him home and egg his house.
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