Scariest teacher you had at school?

[HazelMaker]

My year 6 teacher made several boys cry

I had a Latin teacher who had a wonky eye and a wonky finger and never learned our names. We all lived in fear of him pointing his wonky finger and looking in your general direction and demanding that you decline whatever verb he fancied at that given moment. None of us was sure who he was looking at and if you asked “me?” He would yell “am I looking at you?!” To be fair it was never clear who he was looking at or pointing at 😂 Scared the bejesus out of me but apparently he was a lovely man when he was outside of school and not terrorising kids!

I had 2 Latin teachers who were both terrifying!

I had a worrying female PE teacher (now toll your body over these basketballs for a while), and a worrying male computing teacher (both arms around you to type to help you). I look back now and think WTH.

/ roll your body

My 3rd yr junior teacher had a real reputation for being awful, harsh, overly critical and scary. The school was in the roughest part of town and had some behaviours that are even now toe curling from both children and adults.

I wrote to her when I saw her retirement in the paper after serving the school for 35 years.

I thanked her for giving me a life long love of music, for believing in me, for cuddling me through my tears (dad had died and I was teased a lot being mixed race in a 99.9% white school).

I thanked her for inspiring me to become a primary school teacher and to make a difference in lives like she did to me. She made me feel like a somebody and that I could overcome the hand my childhood dealt me.

Yes, she was absolutely awful to some children, but as an adult I now understand why.

She wrote back, thanking me for my letter, telling me of course she remembered me... And then told me with 35 year old detail why.

❤️ You are loved Mrs Cornish ❤️

Mrs Phillips when I was 9. I was crap at maths so copied my friend's work. We lined up for the work to be marked and my friend had got it wrong so Mrs Phillips slapped my friend's legs. I was next in line and so petrified I would also get slapped I wet myself in fear. I never managed to "get" maths all through school.

Mrs Mortimer - she was racist. I was 6 and recently emigrated from a war torn country. She would mock my pronunciation of words (I couldn’t speak or understand English until 6 months ago) and shouted at me when I didn’t realise that a card we were signing for a TA was a surprise and I gave the game away. I remember the TA just looked at me very kindly as if to say it doesn’t matter.
I mean when you are living in a civil war, your neighbours are being shot dead and you are not living with your parents these social things tend to pass you by.

History teacher. Voice like a foghorn and very strict. This was very late 60s. Boys never played up in her class.

I enjoyed her classes, if you worked hard and didn't mess about she was actually OK. Learnt a lot from her.

Last year of infants school, Miss Bloore. Used to have to line up to have our work marked, and only allowed three at a time so you had a class full of kids trying to get in the queue.
Also, if you had a loose tooth (as we were at the age that happened a lot) she’d pull it out for you, no problem.
It was the 70’s though.

Mrs Williamson, PE/Swimming teacher. When we were in the pool she would push us with a broom handle so we wouldn’t come back to the side. She was horrible.

Mr souter who taught physics in secondary school. Very very strict, no one spoke unless spoken to first. Legend had it he hung someone out of the second floor window by their ankles for misbehaving......
Mr binfield who talk maths and p.e......i really struggled with maths and often ended up in tears

I had a Physics teacher who would thump the boys. You could hear a pin-drop in his class. Everyone disliked him. He was a very angry man and had no business teaching children.
He had a go at my brother once for being late. He had no idea my SD was just outside the room. My SD is also known for his temper and came in the classroom full guns blazing.

Mr Gutteridge was my English teacher. He had a big long stick called Sticky that he would slam on your desk in temper also another stick with a hook on the end for opening windows called Hooky. He would hook the back of your collar with that. He threw chalk at heads if there was any talking. This was in the 70s at secondary school.

Pretty much all the nuns who taught me and as I was convent educated, it was a lot.

Mrs May I had her in grade 2 she would hit me with the ruler for writing left handed ☹️

The French teacher at my comp. Terrifying! She told us very quickly that she didn't like children, particularly teenagers. She was very strict, you could hear a pin drop in her classes. I was rubbish at French, she was very scathing and it was the only class I considered truancy for. I was too rule obedient to do it, but hated it and gave up at options. She left...to have a baby..who would be 40 by now..

The one who married his daughter's 18 year old best friend.

@TroysMammy reading that took me right back. Almost identical situation.

Headteacher was taking our class for maths. She was monstrous. I wet myself in fear. I still remember the shame. Choosing not to share her name but in my memory she was about 6’5” towering over me. Horrific situation.

Mrs Thomas

Mrs Dalby. Told I would never amount to anything repeatedly at 10yo. She used to go red and sweaty when angry and was like an angry bull, throwing books around the classroom in a rage.

Two teachers at secondary school in the 1970s stand out.

Maths teacher: sometimes lovely but sometimes shouted a lot. I found out years later that he had been injured in the war and had had a metal plate inserted in his head. His temper was apparently worse in hot weather when the plate heated up.

Chemistry teacher: we were all scared stiff of him for the first five years of school. He became my form tutor in the 6th form and I remember being very apprehensive about it. I needn’t have been. He turned into a completely different man: funny and kind.

I'm pointing my finger at you now: you decline nouns and conjugate verbs, not the other way round!

I had a Latin teacher at university - a school teacher, not a proper university lecturer. He did grammar revision with first years - a grumpy man who always wore his black clerical robes everywhere like it was the nineteenth century or something.

Fear has changed sides now, and it's the kids who frighten the teachers...

Mr W was the HT of my primary school for the first year I was there. He was all angles and old, with brylcreemed hair and a long beard. He always wore a brown suit, brown shoes and a knitted tie. He smoked a pipe, and smelled like it. He looked like a character from Discworld or a Tim Burton animation. His office was at the top of a wooden spiral staircase and you were totally in the shit if you ended up there. The teachers used this to keep you from misbehaving. He was terrifying to 5 year old me. This is iver 40 years ago and I still remember him.

In infants we had a teacher who we all thought was a witch. She read us the book The Witches and there’s a point in the book that goes “even the person reading this book to you now could be a witch “ when she read it she looked up and smiled at us all and I was convinced she was confessing!

Mr W - my old headteacher and year six teacher. There were a couple of boys in the class who undoubtedly had adhd, which wasn't recognised at the time. Mr W used to single them out and scream at them regularly. He used to scream so hard he would cough violently and had to pick up the waste paper bin to cough in to. It was repulsive and terrifying. He was vile.