To ask the teachers you remember from your school days (good and bad)

[MissionItsPossible]

I was originally replying to another thread but my story got more anecdotal and away from the point of the thread so decided to create a new thread and hear others stories too.

When I was about four or five months into my first year at Primary school ('93) we moved house and I moved to a new school and my teacher (though I liked her at the time) looking back was very unprofessional and quite frankly, horrible! Within the first week of me starting there a boy said he needed to go to the toilet and she said "Get on your knees and beg and I might let you go" () As a class of 7ish year olds we all laughed and said boy reluctantly (after pleading not to for ages but at her insistence) got on his knees and put his hands in a praying position and begged to go and she made him do it over and over again bowing down at her feet before she let him go. I was petrified I would be subjected to the same humiliation like that and once ended up wetting myself weeks later during a lesson

I had a lovely teacher in year 6. She had a lovely way about her and her lessons were always fun and she ran lots of extra curricular clubs as well. I'm still in touch with her now.
I also remember another teacher at the same school. She was very shouty and I vividly remember her laughing at me one time when a got a question wrong. Nice teacher agrees with me that she was mean!

That's horrible :(

Sure
Kindergarten: (private)

Lovely headteacher. A seriously brilliant man.
Lovely female assistants.
Awful male assistant. I was apparently his favourite. He also said he wanted to hit me and a few other things.

Primary: (private school, btw...)
1rst teacher was great, lovely woman.
2nd teacher: Horrible teacher(imo.) Screamed when asked about evolution, made girls take off their sports jerseys, told us how the devil would seduce us, screamed at us for hours, had favourites, Atlantis was apparently real and got upset about things that I see as really weird nowadays. Also had arbitrary clothing rules for some pupils (or at least for me, maybe different for others). Didn't do anything against bullying, ended up blaming a boy that snapped when he was targetted once again. Said people were stupid. liked to humiliate them infront of the class etc...

Middle school: (state school)
Generally good. One boy was heavily bullied and our history teacher(?) unfortunately participated. Admittedly only once or twice, but still. The school was apparently unable to prevent bullying...

High school/College Prep school (rather selective state school)
Generally awesome.
I did have a homophobic and openly sexist physics teacher... And a stinky German teacher (honestly awful). But apart from that it was fine. Very supportive and lovely teachers actually.

junior school one female teacher who had her clique and if you were bright would not help you in any way with your work, her fave saying was your bright you work it out and then go through it in great detail with her clique

grammar school mr clarke my english teacher, was such an inspirational teacher with a real love of his subject and got to admit once he realised how much i loved and still love reading i became one of his favourite pupils

Right...

On a less depressing note:

"good": Awesome maths teacher. Our biology teacher was strict but very competent and supportive (and gave his breaks to explain things to students that didn't understand it during the lessons). Also had a 0 tolerance policy for bullying etc.
Also great history teachers, a very nice French teacher, an extremely motivated music teacher...
And a really creative sports teacher. Our Italian teacher was also good.

These good teachers were all from highschool, btw.

Yes, I had some very lovely and memorable teachers, a few who I am still in contact with, one of my favorites passed away several years ago. I attended a residential school and often stayed with one of the teachers on the weekends . She was very different from all of the other teachers, she had stuffed animals in her class and would let us sit with them, she would read books to us every Friday and order Coca-Cola and brownies or cookies from the class that had home ec. They would sell treats every Friday. Several of my other teachers didn't think I was capable of much, she never thought that way and always supported me until I left the school. She passed away from cancer a few years ago.

I also had a Spanish teacher who I am still in contact with who really encouraged me and even move me into her class, although it was more advanced and every other teacher was against it. I studied languages at the local mainstream school since The residential special-needs school didn't have many opportunities to study languages. I am did up taking the advanced placement exam and passing it, which allowed me to automatically go into the third year of advanced Spanish when I started university. I don't know what AP would qualify as in the UK.

I moved constantly throughout school but three great teachers stand out. One when I was about 9 years old. I was dealing with a lot at home and was often clueless at school, hungry, dirty, no homework to submit. He was from a local minority and was very into positive building up the identities of the other kids in the class from that minority. I wasn't apart of that group but I could see how much he cared and that had a positive effect on me. He would read to us at the end of the day and I still remember the stories. I thought the world of him and when we were due to move to a new class I cried and he kept me. I never forgot that. The only school I stayed in for 2 years running and he kept me.

When I was 13 I had a literature teacher whose appearance the kids teased. I can still remember his slightly green sideburns. I liked him because of the things he had us read and because I earned his admiration when reading aloud once - a rare feeling of pride for me and I was always grateful that in the midst of a hard job and getting personally teased by the students he was able to see me and offer me value.

Another literature teacher when I was about 15 and already a lot cause regarding grades. Unfortunately I fancied him but I was only ever appropriate and respectful and I think I really just wanted to be a part of his nice life. He had us read things that really developed my views on politics and religion and the way the world functioned with regard to humanity. When I was in my early 20s and applying for university I went back to that school to ask him for a reference!

I was very fortunate to have others at university and on my doctorate who could see how much effort I put in and help me where I lacked some of the fundamentals from early education.

Really folks like these are the only ones I recall. Plenty of unhelpful people in the world but the ones who really see their students and can offer little something are priceless individuals.

Mine were dreadful really. I only remember one primary teacher actually trying to teach us anything!

The most amazing man who came into our secondary as a supply when I was in Y9 and stayed for 18 months or so. I was an outcast and really miserable. He spent his break times out on the playground chatting to everyone, used to talk with me about britpop music, then later, when he discovered I was passionate about writing he spent his lunchtimes with me helping me write, playing his guitar and singing. A genuinely funny, brilliant man who I still think of weekly 20 years later. I found out that he died 7 years ago - only in his 40s, and it broke me completely. All of the students from his school at the time wrote passionately about how brilliant he was.

My y3 teacher. Again, amusing, spent his time nurturing everyone's interests. He sees my mum regularly in her shop and still asks after me.

One of my secondary school teachers is currently serving a custodial sentence on account of him being a convicted pedophile. His crimes are beyond belief. There are no words.

A past acting HT stole loads of money from the same secondary school.

I had a truly nasty Y6 teacher - vile woman.

Plenty of nice ones, too, though.

dudsville thank goodness for teachers like him!

Just remembered about one teacher from secondary school who invited loads of the girls from our school to his flat for a party. Not sure what went on at the party but all the girls had to speak to the head and he didn't return.

My first teacher split us into 2 lines in PE. So she divided up the good children and the naughty children. Why she was a teacher was just beyond me.

I was quite "young" for my age, I was also an august birthday so the youngest in the year. I had this teacher when I was in year 5 called Mrs Galvin. She took every opportunity to humiliate me, she used examples of my work as "how not to do it" and absolutely failed me as a teacher. I still hurt now when I think about it. I fell out with my "friend" at the beginning of the winter term over something menial and she was allowed and encouraged by Mrs Galvin to bully me. On the last day of the summer term the "friend" apologised to me and Mrs Galvin made a comment about me making up with said friend and to this day I remember feeling for a very brief moment that maybe I had got it all wrong, she did like me etc but she then followed it up with telling me it would be temporary and I'd never have a real friend.

She really and truly failed me as a teacher. No child should feel the way that woman made me feel.

I moved to Scotland from England in the 1980's.

I had a fantastic PE teacher in secondary who was enthusiastic and inspiring even to the least sporty among us.

I also had a horrendous chemistry teacher who bullied my brother and I. He frequently screamed that he didn't need stupid English kids in his class and we should bugger off back over the border.

Lovely Mrs Graham in primary. School was such fun for a whole year. She left the state system and set up a private school of her own. I met someone who went there once, years later, and he raved about how brilliant she was too. just a born teacher and gifted with how she made children feel.

In secondary - Mrs Podmore. She taught French but she also taught us how to think for ourselves and analyse texts. I loved listening to her talking about the novels we read.

I remember a young trainee teacher when I was in year 3, she had so much time for everybody and had some brilliant ideas for making lessons fun, she was really kind, she went off to teach in an orphanage in another country, I can't remember where but we did lots of fundraising for her to take mosquito nets and water filters and stuff.

I also remember my food tech & Health and social care teacher at secondary, i got pregnant in year 11, through rape although no one knew that part at the time, and was ready to give up on everything, my brother had died and I'd not long been out of foster care, looking back I think I had some sort of breakdown. He sat me down one lunchtime and just said 'here's what's going to happen, you are going to get your coursework done and we will get you through the exams even if I have to drive to the hospital and hold your baby while you do them, then you can worry about uni when kiddos bigger, it'll be tough going but you'll do it.' He never gave up on me or seemed to judge me like everyone else was, I graduated last year.

I had an awful teacher in reception. She wasn't suited to teaching such young children and used to shout at us all the time.

Favourite teacher ever was my Latin teacher. She was scary as hell but if you were good at the subject she was really invested in pushing you. I was lazy and never did my homework but if put on the spot I could always get the questions right so she liked me.

Special mention for a retired male teacher who had a penchant for taking young ladies to Paris in Springtime . As a parent myself I cannot fathom why my parents were happy for me to go to Paris with this man, who was in his late 60s, unmarried, childless and seemed married to the school. He would take about 10 of us girls aged between 11 and 14, no chaperones, and he would look after our money- we had to go into his hotel room to collect it and sign his record of cash. Nothing untoward ever happened but it sounds very odd now.

Same school - head was convicted of child sex offences a few years ago but I liked him, he used to invite pupils in to smell his books. He was an eccentric, wouldn't have known he was also a pervert

sparkly

My teachers ranged from lifelong inspirational to now convicted paedophiles
but I learned from all of them

I had a lovely teacher who I still write to and visit every so often, even though I left school over 10 years ago, he really made me who I am. Pushed me, gave me so many books from inside and outside of his subject area to read and I still have all of them, newspaper clippings, really got me interested in politics and all sorts of glorious things that I would of never of come across otherwise, he taught me a language despite it not being his subject and later on volunteered together at a charity he worked with.

Then I had a horrible teacher in 6th form who made me cry in front of the whole class saying I would never get into university or amount to anything and was completely useless. This explosion of arseness was because the person next to me, not me was speaking when I tried to tell her this, she explained again how useless I was, so I walked out and told the head of year I wasnt going back into her class even if he paid me, self taught myself the rest of the her subject.

I had a wonderful teacher when I was 16ish , taught RMPS. She was a fantastic character, would talk to us about anything and everything. Nothing was off limits in her classroom . She introduced us to ethics (eg. Utilitarianism, Kantian ethics) , and feminism .. taught us about female genital mutilation, pregnancy choices, gender roles/gendering children and sexism. I think she briefly touched on the subject of legalizing cannabis too. She was fab. I think she does pastoral care type stuff now .

Also had two male teachers for politics . Both seemed genuinely interested in their subject - one was a staunch labour supporter, classroom was decorated in red, he made us watch Boys from the Blackstuff, Billy Elliot , Full Monty. His lessons were very much biased towards one viewpoint but he was so enthusiastic, so knowledgeable and always willing to debate if you had a decent argument. We went to school in an area that relied heavily upon manual work/fishing and a lot of poverty/violence associated with decline in factories and fishing. I think he blamed Thatcher directly , he was once quite high up in a factory that burnt to the ground. Very interesting man.

Thinking of teachers I'm in hospital just now and my primary one teacher is on the ward , I don't think she recognises me and I haven't said I know her. She's a very gentle quiet soul and she seems very poorly which is sad.

When I was in junior school there was a teacher who taught year 4, I think, who everyone was scared of. She was really strict and I think shouted a lot. When my, so called, friends threatened to beat me up on the way home she let me stay in her classroom for a while tidying up so I didn't have to bump into them.

I was incredibly shy at that age and hated having to speak in front of people. During one Christmas thing at the local church everyone had to get up and do something. I was paired with another child to recite a poem. The other child was off sick during the show and I had to stand there by myself and say the whole thing, I have never spoken so fast in my life! When I next saw the same teacher she told me how proud she was of me for having done it.

At the same school the caretaker used to feel up the young girls. It had been happening for years as my sister mentioned it to me and she is 11 years older. He would walk behind you and touch your bum I have no idea how he got away with it for so long. He eventually got caught in the girls toilets with a young girl during a school disco. (I know that one doesn't really count as it wasn't a teacher)

I had a few good teachers but the one who stands out was my English teacher in for a couple of years. She was really young and looked it, and I think she was extra strict so we didn't take the piss. Not unfair but she did not take excuses and could be harsh at times.
I was on a school trip and got taken ill and to the local hospital. I was scared and in pain yet she stayed with me the whole time, held my hand through a rather inelegant bout of vomiting, and while the doctor did a rectal exam..... Definitely above and beyond the call of duty! But what sticks the most is before she had to leave the hospital for the night she kissed my forehead in a motherly and tender way that made me feel that little less scared and alone. I didn't have the greatest relationship with my mum and I knew she'd just be annoyed to have to drop everything and rush to where we were and I was scared of that too. She made that a bit better. Wonderful woman. If you're on here and recognise that story - thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I moved from one of the best state schools in England to one of the worst in scotland. In my first few weeks of year 8 a home economics teacher told me I'd be a pregnant drop out at 16 because I forgot my notebook one day. An English teacher told everyone in my class I went to a posh private all girls school(it was neither posh nor private) in england and made my life hell in the years afterwards when I was in her class. I had friends in the class until that day and was shunned and bullied for years afterwards.

There was a PE teacher who bullied everyone. He was a right bastard to everyone EXCEPT me. He hated how badly I was treated by the other students and was lovely to me and looked out for me. No alterior motives other than making my life at school a bit easier - I have a lot to thank him for. His colleague kissed a 6th form student on a weekend trip away that I still have the photo of. One of the other teachers husbands took the photo with my camera in the hope my mum would see it and be outraged but my mum was more worried I'd be seen to ruin his marriage by outing him. She feels differently now. I hated high school and most of the teachers mainly because they overlooked the bullying I received.