To think this was weird?!

[Elmo311]

Hi!

When I was in secondary school I was in CAST for maths (I still suck at it) but the teacher there used to get us to rub our ears until they were red at the beginning of the class, to get our 'brains working' and if they weren't sufficiently red enough he would come round and rub them roughly for us?!

I usually laugh about it, but I'm thinking it wouldn't be acceptable now would it?!

I am 33 if that makes any difference!

That is weird yes, I can see getting pupils to rub their own ears as part of an unorthodox teaching method (still a bit strange) but rubbing pupils ears for them roughly until they are sufficiently red is very weird! I’m 35 and didn’t experience anything like this at school.

What the hell. 😟 That is not normal.

I should've said something shouldn't I?
We were just all very shy kids with low self esteem!

He was taking the piss and using it as an excuse to physically bully you. What a bellend.

Getting you to rub your own ears would be a bit weird, but it’s very weird that he would come round checking and rubbing pupils ears!

But please don’t blame yourself for not speaking up! Most children would find it hard to speak out in that situation

He was definitely a bit of a dickhead.

I just remember my ears burning the whole time and it was actually quite distracting and difficult to learn with them like that! ;(

He sounds like a weird pervert.
Did he have any particular pupils whose ears he rubbed.

@Whatsnewpussyhat I think so too.

I think it was quite equal, it was a small class so he just did it to all of us.

Not happened to me at all! All my maths teachers were not that nice at school ( long time ago now) and I was useless at numbers , but they left us alone to struggle on , luckily!
I have heard of pulling your own ears forwards to hear a bit better and that does work. I remember my dad doing it if he was in the garden and we wanted him to come inside for something , he seemed to hear us then!
Your experience was very strange and must have hurt to make them red.

I just tried rubbing my ears and it really hurts! So weird that your teacher made you do that.

@The80sweregreat I wish mine left me alone!
I will try pulling them forward to hear better when I'm being shouted at from the house next time :)

@Covert19 it's so weird isn't it?

I'm still really miffed about how he got away with it really. He never did anything else but he was an odd man.

What's CAST (loses point of thread.)

@Spidey66 Curriculum Access Support Team

I'm a smidge older than you but I remember there were a number of completely bonkers "brain training" schemes unleashed on unsuspecting schools just after my time. The lucky ones just had to drink a lot of water 'to hydrate the brain' but some involved head massage and twaddle about blood flow.

Aha, Brain Gym! That was it. They had to massage their jaws for an 'energy yawn' or "activating your "brain buttons" by forming a "C" shape with one hand and pressing it either side of the collarbone while simultaneously touching your stomach with the other hand." This is to "increase the flow of "electromagnetic energy" and helps the brain send messages from the right hemisphere to the left. Brain Gym can also "connect the circuits of the brain", "clear blockages" and activate "emotional centering"."

So far, so bollocks. But it got endorsed by the Dept of Children in the 2000s, slammed by Ben Goldacre's Bad Science, exposed, ridiculed and then I think it died a death.

So, I reckon you could have been an early participant in the Brain Gym, and similar program, craze.

That said, even Brain Gym doesn't mention ears. So he could have just been a perv.

@TempestHayes Thanks for that! That is quite interesting to know.
Maybe he decided to make his own version up for the laughs.

All I know is that it was very weird, I probably should've said something like "fuck off", but I was too shy and polite at the time!

@TempestHayes I've just had a google about Brain Gym and there is an exercise for the ears!

Thanks again for this, it does make me feel a little better that I was probably the victim of this load of crap rather than a paedo who liked ears!

I was 'in trouble' as a teacher during this time for audibly scoffing during our Brain Gym training session. I thought it was all bollocks and said so. Other people wrote it down and did it religiously. Some teachers would even email each week with 'tips'. Lol. Sorry you got caught up in that stupidity.

That's very strange!

We had a teacher at primary school who told us to write our spellings/times tables on a piece of paper and sleep with them under our pillow. Apparently our brains would absorb the information while we slept.