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The drama/English teacher said I was not performing up to my potential. Each year she would select a student or two as project students to work with to get them on a better path. I became her project. I had terrible grades. I was constantly in trouble. My time was split between geeks and burnouts, but I was mostly interested in acting and theater tech and I was very good at both. Every month I seemed to get into more and more serious trouble. I also got bullied a lot (especially later when I started dating the captain of the football team’s now ex-girlfriend). She give me special privileges like allowing me to eat lunch in her room with other drama geeks, so I did not have to endure the terror of the cafeteria. She let me keep my stuff in a cabinet in her room instead of in my tiny shared locker. She let me take her car to go get supplies during my independent study in theater tech. She also ridiculed me when I got bad grades, or even grades that were not up to her standards. She posted my report card on her board and wrote comments with arrows pointing at different things (like 42 absences in geometry and only 3 in history – “How is this possible?”). She also gave me a lot of challenging things to do and encouraged me to take several independent studies under her supervision. Where nothing else had worked, she shamed me into improving my grades. I ended up getting all As my last three semesters and boosted my GPA from 1.7 to 3.3. Enough to get into college. I credit her with my career success rather than a life of crime where I was likely headed before she decided to make me a “project”
That's a really nice story. It shows what a difference one person who believes in you can make.
A history teacher was well known for strict discipline, but also very well liked. He would allow you to call him anything as long as it began with Mr. and ended with “sir” as a sign of respect (Mr. ******* Sir:” was fine with him). I told him people have to earn respect from me. He made me do push-ups all day every day. It was a battle of wills. I would make smart ass comments while doing push ups and he would tell the class I was a weakling and make me just lie on the floor when I could not do any more. He would ridicule me about my lack of academic success and I would make smart ass comments back. Every day he demanded I call him Sir and every day I told him he had not earned one iota of respect from me. He had two civil war cannon balls he used as bathroom passes. A larger one for boys and smaller for girls. I had heard they made a cool sound if you roll them on the tile floor of the hallway, because they are all uneven and bumpy. He forbade on pain of death anyone rolling his cannon balls. Turns out they made a very loud cool sound, loud enough to be heard everywhere in the school.. I got a week of detention. The next time I went the bathroom and a girl went at the same time. I borrowed her pass to see what it would sound like if both of them were rolled on the tile floor at the same time. The battle of wills was over. I was in the principal’s office the next day being told I had to change history classes which required me to change my entire schedule. I never called him sir. He never stopped hating me.
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Originally Posted by mitsguy2001
Glad that you were willing to stand up to that teacher and put him in his place. Too bad you got kicked out of his class for doing so.
Clearly, the history teacher that you mentioned was not a good fit for you, but the English teacher that you had was a good fit. Unfortunately, students do not reach their potential unless they have teachers that are a good fit for their personality and learning style. Unfortunately, teachers and parents both like the "you have to learn to deal with people you don't like" line. And schools will argue that they "can't give every student teachers that are a good fit for them". Perhaps some balance is needed, where students are mostly given teachers that are a good fit, so that they can reach most of their potential, while also getting an occasional lesson on how to deal with people that they don't like.
Just out of curiosity, did your parents have to sign off on you switching history classes? Did the teacher outright refuse to allow you to continue in his class?
When I was in 8th grade honors math, I had a teacher who truly hated me. Eventually, she strongly urged me to switch into a different teacher's 8th grade honors math class, who said that she would gladly accept me into her class. It would have been a very simple schedule change; the only other change would have required me to switch from one section of 8th grade honors science to another section with the same teacher. My teacher who wanted me out of her class signed off on the change; the teacher whose class I would have switched into signed off on the change; the assistant principal signed off on the change (even though he hated my guts!).
But unfortunately, my parents refused to sign off on the change! To this day, I am still angry at my parents about that. Their argument was that I "needed to learn to deal with people who I don't like" and that "the other teacher is unlikely to accept you into her class since you behave badly". I kept explaining to them that the other teacher already accepted me and already signed off on it. But they wouldn't listen.
Years later, I confronted my mother about it, who claimed that it was my father who wouldn't sign off. I told her that is not true, since she too refused to sign off, and even if it was just my father that wouldn't sign off, only 1 parent signature was needed. As I mentioned in other threads, when I was in middle school, you would get a grade for behavior in every class (1 being the best, 3 being the worst), and getting even a single 3 would automatically disqualify you from honor roll, even if you had straight A's and a 1 in all other classes. For the rest of that school year, every quarter, that teacher kept giving me 3's for behavior just to stick it to me and disqualify me from honor roll. My parents did eventually complain to the assistant principal. And, while he agreed that I did not deserve the 3 (even though he hated my guts), and said that teachers are supposed to document why they give a 3, which she did not do, the assistant principal said there was nothing he could do and that he had no authority to override a behavior grade. That was likely bull.
Another situation where a teacher tried to force me to drop a class was in my 11th grade Italian course (I had already met the minimum foreign language requirement, but foreign language beyond the minimum requirement was very strongly urged). There was an error on my medical record, unbeknownst to me, and unbeknownst to my parents. Unfortunately, since I was under 18, I was not even allowed to see my medical record. This teacher asked me to either explain to her about my medical problem, or drop her class, or get written up for insubordination (which was a suspendable offense). I told her that I do not have a medical problem, and that she has no right to force me to drop her class due to an alleged medical problem, so I told her to report me for insubordination.
The assistant principal (this was high school, so a different one than the above story from 8th grade) told her that she cannot write me up for insubordination since she had no right to force me to drop her class due to a medical problem, and since I was under 18 I did not have access to my own medical record, so she had no right asking me about it. Eventually, myself, the assistant principal, my guidance counselor, and the social worker worked out a deal to allow me to remain in her class (I had to sit on the opposite side of the room, away from the kids that she felt my "medical problem" was causing to behave bad; I had to ask that teacher every Friday after class what social blunders I made during the week; and every Monday until I graduated, I had to meet with the social worker). Despite a note from my doctor, the school district refused to correct my medical record, claiming that the liability in removing something potentially correct was far greater than the liability of having something incorrect on my record. They did, however, remove me from the list of students with medical problems, which was distributed to every teacher (though it was too late, since every teacher in the school already saw the list with my name on it).
More than a year later, the day after graduation (and a few days after my 18th birthday), the assistant principal finally agreed to lightly cross out the medical problem from my record, with the word "Error" and his initials. I still did not feel that was an acceptable correction (since the incorrect medical problem was still so clearly visible), but at least he was willing to do something. By the way, that assistant principal eventually became the district superintendent. I was glad to see the one assistant principal who ever stood up for me become superintendent.
I only had one teacher I feel truly disliked me. At other times I had teachers I called "mean," but even then (and definitely now, in retrospect) I knew/know that it was because I just didn't like the classes and didn't do well in them, so it was the typical "I got a C because the teacher hates me" stuff.
To be fair, some of said teachers WERE very brusque but that's more a personality thing than actual dislike.
Most of the time, though, I thought the teachers were fine, and a handful were absolutely outstanding and I adored them. And a handful very obviously adored me, though none ever went so far as to favor me in grades or other ways, something I'm grateful for as such teacher's pets would often catch hell from the other students on the playground.
That's not to say some teachers don't let their personal feelings get in the way of teaching, and let's face it, some are downright wackadoo. My son had a teacher (in the 90s) who would stand in front of the classroom and tell the kids how grieved she was that spanking was no longer allowed in schools. When he told me this, I tried to convince him that she was just trying to joke around with the kids. He maintained that the teacher "hated (him)" (and various other kids). I'm sorry to say I didn't believe him until Open House or Back to School Night (can't remember which of these it was). This woman was...unhinged. We parents stood very still listening to her VERY odd diatribe about, basically, how awful kids are and how you need to whip them into shape. Our eyes occasionally darted to meet another parent's eyes and then look quickly away. We were ALL like: Get us the hell out of here. I later apologized to my son, LOL.
I also had one obviously mentally ill teacher, in second grade. The classroom was overcrowded, it was in a city and the teacher would sit on top of her desk and shriek, "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I can't STAAAAAAAAAAAAND it" and grasp her head in her hands and shake her head violently back and forth, then she'd just curl up like that hunched over, forward, until the end of class. The entire class would literally run around during that entire period, jumping up and down on the desks and playing.
**
Leaving aside the wackadoos, here are some teachers I specifically remember in a very positive way...not in grade order, but rather, in the order I've recalled them, thinking about all this:
My 9th grade IPS/10th grade Biology teacher. She was outstanding. She really made us THINK. She was creative and interesting but she kept control of the classroom. I appreciated her so much I recently looked her up on a social media site just to say "thank you." (It was more than 30 years ago that she was my teacher.)
My 7th grade English teacher. She mispronounced my name the first day and as a joke, she continued to do so the entire school year, but not in a nasty/picking-on way. Rather, it was one of her "quirks" and we LOVED her for those quirks. She was absolutely brilliant with English, which automatically made me love her...you'll see that pattern in a few moments, LOL.
My third grade teacher. My parents had just gotten divorced, I had just left the school with the screaming mentally ill teacher and this new teacher took me under her wing. I believe she saw how sad I was. She took special pains to include me, was gentle with me and would often take me aside and tell me about her homeland in Poland. That may not seem like being "a good teacher" and it was certainly not academic teaching but it meant the world to me.
My 8th grade English teacher. He was from Jamaica. He had a giant booming voice and every piece he read, every question he asked and every assignment he orally gave sounded like he was voicing it from a stage, a la "alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio (etc.)." I LOVED it. The whole class did. We were fascinated; we couldn't look away. And therefore we learned a lot. It was just his style but dang, it worked.
My 5th grade English teacher. He was funny and quirky and VERY bright. For some odd reason, he would ask us every morning in French, "Good morning, my friends. How are you?" and we were required to respond, also in French (formal), "I am well, thank you. And you?" This was another teacher who made us think outside the box...to think, period, v. rote teaching (that was rare in my elementary school years...this was in the 70s, if that makes a difference). He went on sabbatical halfway through the year and I was inconsolable.
My 8th grade Social Studies (no specifics, it was just called Social Studies) teacher. He was kind, soft and wanted everyone to do well. Some kids walked all over the poor guy, but I really appreciated the fact that he loved us kids so much and so badly wanted to see us all succeed.
My 6th grade science teacher. He was brilliant. Staggeringly brilliant. I was fascinated.
My 9th grade World Cultures teacher. Unfortunately, this is one teacher I didn't love due to knowledge/delivering knowledge, but because we could sidetrack ANY boring lecture by bringing up either baseball or bars. He started out the year talking about a specific baseball player whom he HATED because he'd asked for this man's autograph and the player had been rude to him. That had been decades earlier but this teacher still held that grudge and if you mentioned this baseball player's name, the teacher would talk all period, literally (or rather, rant all period) about this nasty, useless guy and blah-blah. It was great. He also had this thing about telling us about how there were X amount of bars on the street he grew up on. If we mentioned it he'd go off on a tangent. We'd all write notes to each other and so on while glancing up often enough to pretend we were listening and somehow he never caught on.
Just out of curiosity, did your parents have to sign off on you switching history classes? Did the teacher outright refuse to allow you to continue in his class?
I was called to the office and told I was changing classes.
If something required parental signatures, my sister or a friend signed it. When I finally brought in something that was really signed by my mom, they thought it was forged becasue it did not look like her other signatures. Oops.
I was called to the office and told I was changing classes.
Was it treated as a punishment, or was it treated as you and the teacher having a personality conflict, and switching classes being in the best interest of both you and the teacher?
What did you think of the 2 incidents that I mentioned? In the 8th grade math incident, it was clear that my teacher felt that switching classes would be in the best interest for both myself and for her. Like I said, I am still angry at my parents for refusing to sign off on the change. In the 11th grade Italian incident, it was clear that the teacher was just trying to make her own job easier. Luckily, she failed.
I really only had one teacher who didn't like me, my 7th grade English/Reading/homeroom teacher. She had it in for me, and for good reason, as I was something of a $h!the@d around her. Usually her outbursts were in public, and I wasn't at all the only target of her diatribes. She was only human, but as an instructor/teacher during my career, I found it was imperative to separate emotion from teaching.
A man I GREATLY (note emphasis) respect, and had the honor of meeting, is General (Retired) Ron Fogelman, who was Chief of Staff of the Air Force when I met him when I was a captain. He used to say "Praise publicy, counsel privately" and more important, "Never lose your temper in public". I don't know if those adages are attributable to him, but they are words to respect.
I still keep in touch with my 11th grade English III teacher. I never knew Olde English Literature could be fun.
My Aviation Science teacher and I kept in touch until he recently passed, and he even asked me to be his student assistant in my senior year in HS. A great guy who got me involved in aviation, so much so it became my career.
8th grade English teacher (how tough a job is that?) taught us how to prepare and deliver oral presentations and debates. For some reason he made me, along with a couple others, like an earlier poster, one of his projects, forcing me onto the debate teams, even into topics for which I was diametrically opposed. His tutelage paid off, and years later as a military commander I was routinely addressing 2, 3 and even 5 thousand people. Sadly I was never able to express my appreciation to him, as he retired and left no address, until my mom told me he'd died a few years back.
Last edited by SluggoF16; 06-01-2016 at 10:47 AM..
Was it treated as a punishment, or was it treated as you and the teacher having a personality conflict, and switching classes being in the best interest of both you and the teacher?
What did you think of the 2 incidents that I mentioned? In the 8th grade math incident, it was clear that my teacher felt that switching classes would be in the best interest for both myself and for her. Like I said, I am still angry at my parents for refusing to sign off on the change. In the 11th grade Italian incident, it was clear that the teacher was just trying to make her own job easier. Luckily, she failed.
Neither. It was just simply "
You are changing history classes. It seems you cannot get along with Mr. Sparrow. You will be in Mr. Sprague's class fifth hour." "But I have Geometry 5th hour" "Then you need to change that too. Go see the counselor and reschedule your classes."
It seems unfortunate your parents would not sign off. Apparently they were trying to create a life lesson. Parents and teachers need to communicate more and respect each other more. It goes both ways. teachers think parents know nothing because they did not go to education school. Parents think teachers know nothing becasue they did not spend the past ** years with the child and they tend to try to press each child into a mold that fits something they were taught in school (and sometimes becasue they are not that much older than the students). Parents and teachers need mutual respect, both are guilty of dismissing the knowledge of the other and they do not seem to spend enough time communicating.
Neither. It was just simply "
You are changing history classes. It seems you cannot get along with Mr. Sparrow. You will be in Mr. Sprague's class fifth hour." "But I have Geometry 5th hour" "Then you need to change that too. Go see the counselor and reschedule your classes."
So it's not clear whether it was intended as a punishment, or if they just felt that Mr. Sprague was a better fit for your personality than Mr. Sparrow. How did you get along with Mr. Sprague?
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It seems unfortunate your parents would not sign off. Apparently they were trying to create a life lesson. Parents and teachers need to communicate more and respect each other more. It goes both ways. teachers think parents know nothing because they did not go to education school. Parents think teachers know nothing becasue they did not spend the past ** years with the child and they tend to try to press each child into a mold that fits something they were taught in school (and sometimes becasue they are not that much older than the students). Parents and teachers need mutual respect, both are guilty of dismissing the knowledge of the other and they do not seem to spend enough time communicating.
But I had the opposite problem: my parents respecting teachers too much, even when the teacher was very clearly wrong.
But I had the opposite problem: my parents respecting teachers too much, even when the teacher was very clearly wrong.
I didn't feel my parents always respected my teachers, necessarily, but in my day (she said, sucking her dentures back into place) there was definitely a rule that if you got in trouble at school, it was your fault somehow or other - you must have done something "to set the teacher off" - and you'd get it double at home for having caused trouble in school.
Even in clear cases of a bat-shoot crazy teacher, the attitude was, "If you can't make it work, that's on you. Your education is FREE and you'll be grateful. Don't like your teacher's crankiness, strictness, bias, punitive punishments? Tough...you'll have to deal with all types your entire life...this is a fraction of what you'll receive in the working world (and blah, blah, blah)."
"Causing" problems at school was a source of great embarrassment for parents; ergo, you screwed up (or managed not to eat crow enough for the teacher to be satisfied and leave you alone), you got punished at home, too.
With that said, I remarked above that I rarely had this huge a problem with teachers; just a couple were either outright jerks or outright literally crazy. For the most part, we kids accepted that the teachers made the rules, were going to act as they were going to act and we were GOING to behave, period. That doesn't mean we all did, all the time; kids weren't angels years ago any more than they are now. But really, only the braver, b*llsier kids would seriously act out, usually the headed-for-juvie types...most of us just tried to keep our noses clean. I think we didn't expect our teachers to be "nice," to be extra accommodating of any one of us specifically, to try to be fair, mindful of our feelings, etc. Rather, we expected the teachers to maintain discipline and to teach, and that was about it. I think that's why the extra-awesome ones really, really stick out for me.
I didn't feel my parents always respected my teachers, necessarily, but in my day (she said, sucking her dentures back into place) there was definitely a rule that if you got in trouble at school, it was your fault somehow or other - you must have done something "to set the teacher off" - and you'd get it double at home for having caused trouble in school.
Even in clear cases of a bat-shoot crazy teacher, the attitude was, "If you can't make it work, that's on you. Your education is FREE and you'll be grateful. Don't like your teacher's crankiness, strictness, bias, punitive punishments? Tough...you'll have to deal with all types your entire life...this is a fraction of what you'll receive in the working world (and blah, blah, blah)."
"Causing" problems at school was a source of great embarrassment for parents; ergo, you screwed up (or managed not to eat crow enough for the teacher to be satisfied and leave you alone), you got punished at home, too.
With that said, I remarked above that I rarely had this huge a problem with teachers; just a couple were either outright jerks or outright literally crazy. For the most part, we kids accepted that the teachers made the rules, were going to act as they were going to act and we were GOING to behave, period. That doesn't mean we all did, all the time; kids weren't angels years ago any more than they are now. But really, only the braver, b*llsier kids would seriously act out, usually the headed-for-juvie types...most of us just tried to keep our noses clean. I think we didn't expect our teachers to be "nice," to be extra accommodating of any one of us specifically, to try to be fair, mindful of our feelings, etc. Rather, we expected the teachers to maintain discipline and to teach, and that was about it. I think that's why the extra-awesome ones really, really stick out for me.
While I understand the point that you, your parents, and my parents were making, the point that you and they are missing is that by not standing up for me, and discouraging me from standing up for myself, they turned me into a target for bullying by teachers. I feel that the teachers that I had bullied me because they knew that my parents would not stand up for me. And similarly, I feel that many students who bullied me did so knowing that if I fought back, I would get detention, and my parents would not stand up for me.
And while I understand the analogy about having a bad boss, the scenario I was in with my 8th grade math teacher was an (admittedly unlikely) scenario where I was basically being fired for being a poor corporate fit, but the boss firing me helped find a new job that was a better fit, with the same salary, responsibilities, benefits, commute time, etc. Obviously I would be a fool not to take such an offer. There is also a huge difference between a teacher (or boss) who you simply don't like vs. a teacher (or boss) who seems to have a personal vendetta against you. In the former case, you probably just need to suck it up, but in the latter case, you need to do something.
I think that parents need to find the right balance between respecting a teacher's authority vs standing up for their kids. Obviously you shouldn't fight with the teacher over every little thing that happens, but when your kid becomes a target of bullying by teachers and/or other students, the parent needs to step in.
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It was just his style but dang, it worked.
