Asklemmy

I had a teacher who had us read a certain amount of books on our own per semester. We could choose pretty much any book.

I chose a book in the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy series.

He would check that we’d actually read the book by sitting down with us and turning to a random page, reading a bit and then asking us what was happening, who the character he’d read about was, that kind of thing.

Well, yeah if you’ve ever read HHGTTG books, you know it can go on random tangents. My teacher read one of these random tangents about a character never seen before or again, and which had no connection to the rest of the story at all except as a setup to talk about something else that did have to do with the story.

My teacher could not wrap his head around this. He read a couple more random selections and I did explain those, but his assessment was that I had only hastily skimmed the book instead of properly reading it, and therefore lowered my score on what was normally an easy 100% assignment.

I have a past teacher who took a Gameboy Micro away from me because I played it during school. It still sits somewhere in her desk.

Professor gave extra credit for attending talks by visiting speakers if you got the speaker's signature as proof you were there. I attended but couldn't get a signature from the speaker before they left. Saw the professor there, had a chat with them and left. Professor proceeds to deny extra credit "because there was no proof I was there." We literally had a chat at the talk and you don't know if I was there!? Ok.

That same professor had a habit of essentially bullying students singling them out in class and mocking them if they didnt understand the material (that the professor did a poor job of explaining which is why exams were typically in the 40s and 50s on average) and looking at their reviews indicated that theyd been doing this for years, decades even. So their end of semester feedback came in and they were no longer teaching that course.

I want to preface this by saying this teacher used to be my favorite teacher. He was really good about talking to our level, but not treating us like little kids (this was the seventh grade). You could have an adult conversation with him and he was good about engaging the class.

So anyway, for History class we had this project about the Canada Home Children. For those not in the know, while Canada was still a British colony in the 17th century, the government started this program where colonists in the Canadian territory could adopt British children from orphanages to help on their land. In practice, this meant that people were 'adopting' unwanted children so they could have cheap labour. In class we learned that the kids were treated basically as slaves and typically went through lots of abuses.

At the end of the term we had this project where we had to summarize the typical child's experience. For my project I decided I was going to make a satirical comic. I drew several strips that each detailed something we learned about in class. I remember a kid getting lost overboard on an overcrowded passenger ship, one getting frozen solid in ice because of the harsh Canadian winter, and another being made to eat a raw turnip while the rest of the family was having a Christmas dinner.

My teacher gave me a D for the project because he said it was disrespectful to the children.

I went to a lot of effort for this project, really went above and beyond because I love comics. I felt I was showing the abuses the kids had gone through, and I thought the comics were funny but tasteful. I also felt that it was pretty clear that since I'm drawing the abuses of literal friggin' children it went without saying that I was also condemning the program as inhumane.

We had a parent/teacher meeting about it because I'd never gotten such a low grade in my life. And I was pretty upset too, I worked hard on this thing. My teacher goes on to explain that if you have to be careful with this kind of thing, because satire is tricky to get right without offending people. He then goes on to talk about A Modest Proposal, a satirical essay from around the same time where the author proposes that since the Irish were having a famine they should just eat their babies. He was talking about this as if it was the appropriate way to do satire.

My dad asked how my cartoon about abuse was any different from a story about eating babies. My teacher didn't have an answer, but I still had a D

In hindsight, the story did teach me a pretty valuable lesson. If you're going to make satire, you're going to offend people, and you're probably going to suffer for it. I like to think he was trying to teach me that there are stakes for speaking against injustice, and you have to be willing to accept that people are going to be critical or dismissive of you. But if you've offended someone with your satire, then... that's kind of the point. Anyway, I'm happier thinking there was some lesson to it other than him just being a jerk about my project

Not directed exclusively at me, but I had a math teacher throw a temper tantrum directed at a classroom of 4th graders about how much of a personal injustice it was to her that our parents kept sending her complaints, and that has got to be the worst thing she did.

To give you a picture as to why she might've been getting so many, when my Mom sent in one of these "complaints," she received a response in the form of a metaphor about how coal must be put under immense pressure in order to become a diamond... I think my Mom responded that something like a flower might serve as a better metaphor for a fucking 9 year old, though I doubt it did much to change that jerk's mind.

Anyway, having her as an instructor set me back at least a year in math, and I've had other people who were in that class say that that's where their issues with anxiety started.

Picking me up and slamming me into the lockers because I tossed some trash into a bin but missed. Before I could pick it up I was being held by my neck against the lockers. Teacher never got in trouble because he was "going through some tough times". That same semester I got suspended for defending myself after being attacked by another student too, I didn't even start the fight.

Bunch of bullshit, but that's life I guess.

Failed me in discrete math and I still don’t know why. I did ok (passed) on all the exams, which was basically the metric for passing/failing. Most of the class failed too. Dude probably had a shitty time and took it out on the class.

Just treated us like human garbage well before I was old enough to know it was fucked up. 4th grade, treating a bunch of 10 year olds like garbage. Screaming, flipping desks over little girls wearing makeup. She'd been complained about for years, but the school wouldn't remove her. I can remember that was the year my issues with anxiety started.

Really dig in her heels on the idea that 50% is not equal to 1/2. Thinking she must be joking I wrote a two-page proof explaining all of the reasons why 50% is equal to 1/2 and she was more than a little bit mad at me for not letting it go...

I ended up having to appeal to her department chair who walked into the room during my class, sat down at her computer, changed my grade on that test, and said to her, "I really shouldn't have had to come down here to do this myself. I don't want to have to come down here again. I'm asking you to drop it."

She didn't say another word for the rest of that class period and was not in school the next day. For the life of me I can't understand what the fuck she was thinking was going to happen. Math doesn't recognize opinions or authorities outside of math and she should have known that.

My English teacher made fun of me in front of the class, completely out the blue, because she wanted to be respected by the popular kids who bullied me.

High School Tech Theatre Teacher. Many of the teachers in the theatre department at that school had somewhat of a reputation. This one, I felt at first, might've been unearned. She seemed genuinely good at her job, besides the occasional slip-up. During one class period, she explained to the class that she expects us to set up our big giant table and the chairs for it(It was a rather unfinished building specifically for the theatre department with no actual classrooms, so our classroom was actually just a square nook in a hallway.) before class began so we could get through lessons faster. Reasonable request, that's fine, we were getting rather...nothing done for awhile because of how janky it was to have a classroom setting like that. That's not necessarily her fault.
One class, though, there were some band students moving their instruments - talking cellos, saxophones, tubas, entire drumsets, and other big and/or fragile instruments and class materials - to the auditorium nextdoor through said classroom which was...just a hallway. Y'know, using the hallway as it's supposed to be used, rather than as a classroom. We, as people with common sense, didn't start moving around our heavy class materials likely to cause injuries just to make the path even narrower than it already was. Once class started, teacher RAILED at us for about a minute. She was clearly SEETHING as she ranted about how when she says to do something we do it. One student tried to explain our reasoning for the delay, even saying "There were other students moving heavy stuff through here. Why would we form a big block?" Her response?

"Why would you not?" I am not fucking joking, those were her exact words. She then interrupted him before he could respond and told him he was saying he didn't care what she had to say and he was being disobedient. When he tried again to explain himself she threatened to send him to the principal.
This was not the only thing she did that proved to me she was a power-tripping removed who saw us students as her inferiors, but it was the one thing I just can't get out of my mind because of just how absurd it was in the moment. The only funny part was that she didn't even realize she was taking up MORE class time than we took setting up as she raved about such a petty issue because we apparently questioned her authority.

I was not allowed to go on the next class trip because I talked when I wasn't supposed to on the bus ride home during the last trip.

My report cards were always excellent academics but needs improvement or unsatisfactory on behavior because I was talkative. They wanted little meek drone robot children to feel superior over in their miserable jobs and lives. I imagine the feeling of power over a captive youth who have no choice over interacting with them therefore they can do almost anything they like was the only thrill most of these teachers received in life. Even as a kid, I never granted respect to anyone, classmate or adult without them earning it.

The next class trip was to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. I remember seeing commercials and wanting to see the animal tricks. I had to stay at school alone that day and I never did get to go to that Circus.

I hated disgusting school lunches so my parents made mine. I had a teacher dictate how I was eat my lunch which I brought from home and when I refused to eat in any other order but the way I wanted to, told me to sit on my hands. That got handled by my parents and I was never told a damn thing about my lunch again.

Another teacher lectured me about learning to live in the world with other people when I complained that the classmate behind me was repeatedly kicking my chair and jolting me during class.

Looking back, these situations were always a conflict of wills where students weren't supposed to have any and just mindlessly follow or allow themselves to be picked on by others.

Suffice it to say, the majority of my teachers were scum and my favorites were few and far between. This is why people homeschool. Poor teachers, propaganda and brainwashing as education, and crap school lunches.

Not letting me dehydrate a lemon when he told us to bring in "any fruit you want to dehydrate" as a fun class activity. He said something along the lines of I was being difficult.

Fuck Mr.Moen and the fuck the horse he rode in on.

Exist. The US education system failed me.

I am not "normal" I can't read a chapter and pass a test. I need to be hands on. So the system gave me a C and moved me on to the next grade.

I was given the privilege to realize I can program, and by high school had already become pretty handy in C++. This is before high school.

I was a star in every tech class they had. Got Cs still of course cause i didn't give a fuck, but it was very clear I was light-years ahead of even the teachers.

Not one teacher, staff or administrator asked me why I wasn't going to college? Sat me down about my grades and got me aligned. No one gave 2 shits.

I got lucky. I got myself into the career without college. But man, those students who didn't have the privileges I did, that just got dropped to the curb. Shame.

Back in 5th grade my teacher accused me of speaking during a school show. I was the quiet kid in class.

Is "contributing to the bullying with my bullies" a good enough reason? It's one of the reasons I can't trust anyone in a position of authority now.

see them work as a "factory workers" and not actually teach, do classes without worrying about transmitting something to you (banally it is a common attitude to almost all teachers).

Forced me to explain my ASD to the class. This was after I made a lot of progress in my early childhood; by the time I got to highschool I no longer thought my former ASD diagnosis defined who I am, and I preferred to keep it to myself. I certainly didn't want people to think of me differently because of it, but my teacher thought otherwise.

I’m very sure I’ll be able to contribute to this conversation at the end of the semester. I have an Organizational Behavior class and the teacher is a prick, narcissist and a bully. Treating us adults like we are misbehaving children and gaslighting us every class.

I got accused of breaking a window (i didn't) and i had to take responsibility for it, if i ever find that old witch again i will let her know how colorful my language is.