Progressive Boink

[Shamrock]

I've been thinking about this because we were shown a video in an education class today to emphasize the importance of applying educational material to a student's personal experience in order to help the student better understand the subject. In said video, a middle school teacher is making a lesson plan to get her students to think about whether they would have dropped the atomic bomb on Japan or not. To help them understand what was probably the most complex decision an American President has ever made, she made up a helpful little hypothetical situation to help her students understand the morality:

"If you had to break a promise to a friend to save their life, would you do it?"

The implication being if the student would answer yes to that question, then the minor evil of dropping an atomic bomb on a civilian population would be worth the greater good of winning the war against Japan.

So what are your worst teacher stories? In high school, my Geology teacher would spray kids that fell asleep in her class with a squirt gun, perform simple addition and subtraction problems on the blackboard with mind boggling inaccuracy, once fell asleep in class herself while we were doing an assignment in groups, and backed into my car in the parking lot.

[mreow]

What's wrong with the squirt gun? I think that's a clever way to handle the situation. Though at my high school, anything that even was gun shaped was strictly banned.

[Shamrock]

It was a pretty humiliating for her students.

Also, she was an 80 year old Dutch woman. It was next to impossible to stay awake in her class.

[endlessmike]

it's hard to say.
my seventh grade science teacher taught us "life science" maybe 10 days out of the whole year we had him. i remember one day he told us to read a chapter on conifers. here are some things i learned about in his class though:
- he was the 2nd fastest man in texas. he would have been the 3rd fastest, but the 2nd fastest man had died
-how good looking he was and how numerous women desired him (many of whom he rejected because he has high standards like "no tattoos")
-baldness is transmitted to children from maternal genes
-how brilliant his children and grandchildren were
- the physically abnormal people he had personally taught or encountered (a baby born without bones, a boy who sweated urine, a deaf girl who committed suicide by climbing onto an electric wire, a girl who could not feel pain)
-the disappointment he felt when learning greg lougainis was gay and had aids
-how he was going to move to canada some day and make $500,000 off the canadian government

but still, i don't know if he was the worst teacher i've ever had.

[Captain Hot Stuff]

I had a Health teacher who hated kids and came to every class looking at us like we were scum on the bottom of her shoe. She never blinked, either. We'd sit at the back calling out "BLINK!"

I had a Maths teacher who was utterly obssessed with the subject and failed to understand why it bored us. He had no tolerance whatsoever for anybody who was even five minutes late to class. In fact, he once yelled at my friend's brother for failing to attend a class because he was at his grandmother's funeral.

I also had a Geography teacher who, although she was a very nice person, pointed at Baja California at a map and called it "Florida."

[Cory/Corrinna]

After reading endlessmike's post, it makes me wonder if I had a bad teacher at all.

Though, I had some lame substitute teachers in my day.

In elementary school, I'd have to say the worst was grade 8. It was a catholic school, so our teacher taught us math, english, french, religeon, geography, and art. A different teacher taught us science. There were two problems I had with our main teacher:

This school had a lot of higher-wealth students, so it just seemed to coincidental that the kids with parents that had the highest income just happened to have the highest IQ's, but at least 50% of these special genius kids didn't really display such gifts...in fact, one was known to pay a legitimately bright (though poor) student cash, to complete her homework.
Because I just showed up in september for grade 8, I wasn't a part of the prior years and education, so I was stuck in the medium, longing to participate in the class newspaper (privy only to the genius league), and begrudgingly working with the classmates in my educational league doing menial things.

The other problem I had, was I actually failed the religeon portion of the curriculum. Maybe I got a 50% final mark, but I totally failed the big written test. Yes, there was a written test, with questions like "Explain Heaven" and "Explain Hell". Because I went with my religeous/spiritual mom's answers which was "Being in the presence of God" and "Being in the absence of God", I receieved 0's. This is because I didn't state it as "fluffly clouds and angels" and "fire and bromstone". Needless to say, I haven't been a big fan of the religeon I was baptised into since then.

In highschool, it was mainly the substitute teachers that got my goat, because we'd get the same "jack of all trades" one, and all she ever did was make snide commentary on how dumb it is for teenagers to smoke cigarettes.
Either earn your salrary and teach me how to find out what x is when b is variable, or light my cig, woman!

At least I didn't have to deal with a self-obsessed wackjob when I was supposed to be learning science.

[Whittle]

-baldness is transmitted to children from maternal genes

i think this is actually true

[Rusty Cooledge v2]

My second grade teacher smacked me on top of the head with a heavy text book for laughing too loud and made me cry. That one pisses me off when I remember it to this day cause I so could have gotten that bitch fired.

In the first grade my teacher tried teaching us mercury was the smallest planet. I knew pluto was thanks to my Charlie Brown Encylopedia and got in a fight with the whole class and her over it. So I went home, got the encyclopedia, and showed her how the schools textbook's copyright was older than my book, thus mine was updated and correct. Probably the coolest and smartest thing I ever did as a kid. Unfortunately, pluto is no longer a planet so 14 years later those fucks were right after all.

My 5th/6th grade teacher was one of those teachers who spent every possible moment telling shitty jokes and trying to endear himself to you, and then fuck-snapped over the stupidest bullshit. He would always say "I'm the best 5th and 6th grade teacher you've ever had" because lol he is the only one, durr.

That was when I was going to school in Canada, and I remember getting in an argument with all of my classmates and the teacher over whether America had 50 states (as I said) or 52 (including Greenland). Recently I wondered if they were just fucking with me for being the American kid, but I don't care cause that shit pissed me off and they never gave it up, so fuck em.

[webber Cooledge]

-baldness is transmitted to children from maternal genes

i think this is actually true

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgenic ... d_genetics

[blacktoothgrin]

In P5 I had this awful woman called Mrs Shanks. Despite going to a non-denominational school, everybody was forced to say the Good Prayer before and after breaks and intervals. She made us copy out the Bible and when it came to Religious Education she taught us almost exclusively Christianity. I don't remember much else about her, like if she let us write poetry all the time or gave us lots of homework.

[Captain Hot Stuff]

You would not believe the number of Australians who think there are 52 states. I always correct them to fifty, and they reply, "Yeah, plus Hawaii and Alaska" and I say, "Uh, no, it's 48 plus Hawaii and Alaska."

People fucking up geography irritates me far more than it should.

[erica]

I had a Maths teacher who was utterly obssessed with the subject and failed to understand why it bored us. He had no tolerance whatsoever for anybody who was even five minutes late to class.

Let me introduce you to every math teacher I've ever had.

I don't know if I'm not remembering things because I don't want to or something, but I can't think of any really awful teachers I've had. Also, I think I was always kind of a teacher's pet throughout school

There was my Spanish teacher in middle school who always sprayed the room to smell like oranges and looked like she was foaming at the mouth, but they took her away to the crazy hospital. She had a sweet heart, though.

I had a kindergarten teacher make me sit in the corner because I thought I was so smart that I could take a test with my eyes closed. She was probably right to do that, though.

Then of course there's always a shitload of teachers who give you way too much work and way too little time to accomplish it, but that's too common to single out just one teacher.

[Dollo]

I've had a few horrible teachers in my day, but really, nothing compares with the shitheads who are teaching high-school now. How do I know this? Because at 26 years old, these new teachers are my peers.

My girlfriend's friend is one, she called me the other day to ask "how many meters in a kilometer?". YOU'RE TEACHING GRADE 5 KIDS AND YOU DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER TO THIS?!?! HOW THE FUCK DID YOU GET A JOB YOU INCOMPETENT TWAT?!

Seriously, the generation of kids beneath me, and new generations of kids growing up now are just doomed. Fucking doomed.

[Whittle]

Charlie Brown Encylopedia

these were fucking awesome and i read all 15 of them cover to cover at least 5 times

the astronomy one and electricity/magnetism ones were my favorite

[Rusty Cooledge v2]

I know dude, I need to go find them one of these days at my parent's house.

My girlfriend's friend is one, she called me the other day to ask "how many meters in a kilometer?". YOU'RE TEACHING GRADE 5 KIDS AND YOU DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER TO THIS?!?! HOW THE FUCK DID YOU GET A JOB YOU INCOMPETENT TWAT?!

Since the metric system is standard in Canada we learned that in 5th grade.

12th grade physics class in America, I had to help half the class figure it out.

EDIT: itt i brag about being smarter than entire classrooms

[Captain Hot Stuff]

Since the metric system is standard in Canada

Not to mention everywhere else in the world except Liberia and Burma.

LIBERIA AND BURMA.

[Rusty Cooledge v2]

How America should use the metric system is my go to conversation topic with people I know I'll have to sit with for a long time when I have nothing of real interest to say.

[Dollo]

Rusty, you seem like a cool guy - but if that's your idea of small talk - I'd hate to be stuck at a dinner party sitting next to you. However, I do admire your originality of using that topic though. Hmmmm...Maybe you're onto something after all. Alright, I retract my earlier statement and would like to sit next to you at a dinner party.

Be at my place around 7:30. I hope you like lamb, AND CONTROVERSY!

[James]

remember when the us government tried to transition into it back in the 80s and they'd put up MPH/KPH signs and people would shoot the signs down

wasn't that great?

[Duzzy Funlop]

Tenth grade english honors. This was right after I learned that I really enjoy english in my awesome ninth grade honors class. I don't know why I didn't just go to GT. This woman almost made me hate books forever.
She wasn't a teacher. She was an accountant who decided to give it up and start teaching. Her name was Ms. Money. What the fuck. She was blonde, middle-aged, and retarded. She knew nothing of how an english class is supposed to be. Hell, she knew nothing of english. Seriously, my friend and I would spend the entire class correcting her spelling and grammar.

We did Catcher in the Rye in that class. I was so excited for it, and to this day it's one of my favorite books. Ms. Money makes us read the last chapter first. Because that's just how she is. She gave us an assignment, basically an entire packet in which we pretend to be a doctor and diagnose Holden(because a 10th grade english class should be expected to have a working knowledge of psychology) and prescribe him with treatment, etc. I walked up to her and told her that I wouldn't diagnose him with anything, and she just laughed in my face and walked away, cause she honestly thought I was joking.

She didn't know how to keep a discussion going. She would pose a question to the class and every single time a student would make an observation she would go "Yeah, but don't you think it's really like this?" And then she would explain her reaction to the book, and that became canon for tests. The real problem is that her analysis was moronic.

She encouraged us to use Sparknotes. She lied to the principal, saying my friend cursed her out, so she could get her out of the class. The principal, who was a witch herself to the student body, actually sided with my friend. Apparently this wasn't a rare thing, and every day the entire other honors class would fill out slips complaining about Money. She was fired a year later and I was pissed I wasn't the reason why.

Oh, and my 10th grade spanish wasn't too good either. We had a teacher who was just... an oblivious old lady. She didn't teach well, or do anything well. She didn't give me a grade for first quarter. On my report card there was just a big blank, but it counted as an E. I told her this so many times and every time she would just nod and walk away, sometimes saying she'd take care of it. She never did. I had that no-grade for a year and a half before anyone did anything about it.