Scariest teacher you had at school?

[HazelMaker]

My year 6 teacher made several boys cry

Miss Trickey. What a nightmare. 8 years old and when I got a sum wrong it was ruler across the knuckles. 1960s.

The nuns were always the scariest teachers. They were used to hitting kids and by the time we came along it wasn't allowed anymore so they were just aggressive in their manner instead

The one who groomed girls by encouraging them to join the band.

Mrs Peinter. Taughts Afrikaans and PE and coordinated the school hockey. She called me out once to shout at me with spit flying because I was signed up for however many extracurricular activities and one clashed with a c- or d-team hockey match that afternoon. I had a miserable home life and used all the school activities as a way to stay at school, which she must have known. I dutifully got on the coach and didn’t even get called up during the match.

One of my A level English teachers was absolutely terrifying. She had these small, dark, piercing eyes and her death stare was the talk of the school. I ran out of her classroom one day because I couldn’t answer a question and was just totally overwhelmed by her staring at me. She sent for me later and was actually really lovely. I wasn’t usually the type for dramatic exits to be fair!

A couple of pp’s have mentioned Latin teachers. Ours wasn’t scary, but she was a bit deranged. She used to make us say ‘I am a silly sausage’ if we got anything wrong or forgot our homework. And she would tell us to fold back our wings when she had an announcement to make. She was a loon, but teachers like her made the day a bit brighter and more interesting!

Mrs Pratchett - total cunt

My maths teacher at secondary school was huge, shouty and aggressive, used to throw the board rubber at your head if you talked in class. He hated me and I would routinely spend his lesson standing in the corridor because he'd kicked me out, something I was grateful for later on when it came to light he was a prolific paedophile who had abused several girls, including some from my year group. I was scared of him back then but not in the way I should have been knowing what I know now.

Sister Mary Catherine, AKA Sr Mary Thwakem, everyone in her class got the ruler at some point, she had a special thick wooden metre stick for in class and walked around with a small ruler at other times.

She accused a boy of writing in a text book, he denied it so he got the ruler, the same thing happened the next day, and the day after. After 2 weeks the boy who did do the writing owned up.

At secondary an English teacher, he was dirty, smelly and a letch. You could tell he got his rocks off making girls read certain passages of books.

One of the other English teachers was lovely but had a mental breakdown. When she came back he decided she wouldn't be able to teach the top set so he put the top set and the second set together.

Nice English teacher was explaining to the class why they were not going to be taught by her when he walked in and basically gave her a telling off and told the class to move. I wasn't in the nice teacher's class but I know the students who were thought his behaviour was terrible.

Most of them weren’t fit to be teachers and should have been sacked.

We had a PE and music teacher that were meeting 15 year olds for sex. They were sacked but not punished.

Others would pick up chairs as a threat. Hit you with a ruler. Scream. It was only in the 2000s but I think slots improved since.

Miss Springett , my reception class teacher, was terrifying but it turned out underneath the strictness she was actually a very kind woman.

most of them, psychotic, angry, bullying, ineffective, should not have been
anywhere near young impressionable teens
the school closed and the buildings used for educational administrative purposes apparently
they have now been demolished and a housing estate built on the grounds

I had a German teacher who was absolutely terrifying (although I can't remember a single reason why - I think he just had the reputation of being 'terrifying' so everyone went along with it). Several of the teachers at my secondary school slept with students, which at the time was just the source of amusement / rumours - but now is so shocking. It was the 80s

There was this one biology teacher in private school who was really horrible. She shouted all the time. She kicked me out of class for wearing the wrong coloured stud earrings once. Strangely I enjoyed the subject and fact she scared me made me want to work harder?!

Then there was the science teacher at comp who looked like the teacher from Beavis and Butthead. Mr Buzzcut. He had this red face with bulging veins and he'd scream at the top of his lungs during sex education class...'its not funny! Stop laughing!' we were sixteen by that point so there wasn't really much he could tell us on that particular subject.

Recollections of another teacher at primary (Scotland. 1980s). She consistently ridiculed a vulnerable boy in my class. Home circumstances not great so he was often unwashed, etc. This old witch routinely singled him out & publicly humiliated him. And to think this was a catholic school and this particular teacher was very involved in the church. Gospel values, my arse! I will never forget the empathy I felt for this kid and now, as an adult, I often think why didn’t the rest of us take a stand? Imagine the power we all could have had if we’d done something about this systematic, institutional bullying? I’m a teacher (secondary) and I am SO glad things have changed and children now have a voice.

I often wonder what her colleagues thought of her?

My Geography teacher at high school.

He was pretty horrible. I remember him aggressively jabbing a finger into my shoulder when I was stood in the lunch queue. He thought I’d pushed in - I hadn’t.
He also had a go at me about not showing up for my work experience placement. They had phoned him saying I was a no show. They never got back to me, literally confirmed nothing, so I found another place, independently. I explained all this to him but he just shook his head at me and walked off. He was a real prick, actually.

Latin teacher - big bloke who wore his big black gown, had a very built up shoe that he used to kick you up the backside with. He was also Olympic standard at throwing the wooden board rubber.

My Year 3 Primary school teacher early 1970s. Won't name her (Miss C) but she was vile. Slapped me with a wooden ruler on the hand every time I picked up a pen with my left hand. (Apparently left handed people were spawn of the devil with her) Similarly clouted every time I set the table for school dinners and got the knife and fork the wrong way round.
She didnt just pick on me. Other students were so scared of her they would pee their pants if they got a sum wrong. On one such occasion nobody owned up to the puddle and she made us all stand on our chairs whilst she walked round looking for the culprits wet dress/trousers.
I got to the point that I refused to pick up a pen or pencil. What was the point? This teacher told my mum ' I wasnt very bright and was finding the work hard'
(FYI I have a chemistry degree -so not that thick!)
My mum wasnt daft though and picked up that something was wrong and contacted my dad as soon as his RN carrier docked. He arrived in full naval dress uniform having finished his admiralty meeting in London early. His arrival caused major uproar at the school. He came in with the Head and took me out of class.When I told him what had been happening he just told me to collect my things as I would not be returning.
I went back in class and Miss C was told in the corridor by my dad that it was the last time she would ever get to hit me again and that I was leaving the school.
I felt sorry for those children left behind.

Most definitely the ones that could remember the times when they could give us a wallop and were bitter that they were no longer allowed to.

@Charlottejbt see? Fear made me forget! To be fair, I always knew that Latin was never going to be my strong point 😬 and I agree that fear seems to have swapped sides now.

Miss Gatter

Good point. It's very counterproductive to terrorize pupils - and teachers too, of course!

So many Latin teachers (pleased not to see my own mum on this list, though she actually had a heart of gold under the firm exterior). We're really much nicer these days!

I had nuns too in primary school. They would whack you across the palm with a ruler for the slightest misdemeanor. Boy did that sting. Grammar school - Miss Peachey was a formidable games mistress. She took no prisoners and was never known to smile.

In Year 5 and 6 I had a French teacher who seemed utterly terrifying at the time. She was serious, impatient, strict and just generally scary to be around, or she was to me as a little 9 year old who had just moved up from a cosy little lower school full of very nurturing teachers. In hindsight she wasn’t actually that bad, I think she just had very good control over my class which had the reputation of being the worst class in the school. Anyway, I ran into this teacher a couple of years ago (30 years after she taught us) with my sister and we introduced ourselves to her. The first thing she said was “I’m so sorry to you both…I must have terrified you”. We ended up having a lovely conversation with her.

Our French teacher was extremely strict and and at any indiscretion would go on long, winding rants about prison and how children around the area in borstals and didn't we know that YOU SHOULD COUNT YOURSELF LUCKY BECAUSE TEACHERS DON'T LIKE CHILDREN IN FRANCE and would wave her hands wildly in the air, sometimes muttering swears under her breath in French. When she was happy she'd throw haribo around the room with wild abandon and sing at us. Utterly unhinged but we loved her in the end.