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Original poster

Weird things your teachers did, which they would be fired for today.....

499 replies

muriel76 · 27/09/2011 19:15

Bit of a random question, but I was chatting with an old school friend the other day and we were remembering our teacher at primary school having a new bathroom fitted and she wanted to check how the workmen were doing.

The whole class was told to 'line up at the door' and off we marched down the road to her house, with teacher leading the way (small town BTW she lived near the school!) but no other adults in sight.

We then all sat in her back garden while she chatted to the plumber!

Ok this was back in the 80s but it made me think - you would never get away with this today.

Anyone else got a similar story from before the days of the national curriculum and parental consent forms etc?!

OP posts:
Galaxymum · 07/10/2011 19:51

At primary school we had a male teacher who was well known to put his hand up girls' skirts. So well known that he'd done it to some of our mums and they said "Just don't be alone with Mr ........" - when we used to see him in the corridor, us girls would go the other way and avoid the toilets. Yet the bloke carried on to retirement!

I also remember other mums telling me and my mum that it was a good experience to learn how to deal with "men like that". It still shocks me now.

Alicious · 07/10/2011 21:56

I remember my Y1 teacher lining up the whole class by the door and checking in all of our underwear to find out who had taken a dump in the corner of the classroom! (And I remember whos poo it was)
And because I was the 'sensible one' in the class I had to walk one of the 'bad' children round to his mum's house when he apparently deliberately shat himself-which meant leaving the school premises and returning alone at 4 years old-This happened regularly and I was terrified!
It was a shitty school in every sense of the word

StrangewaysHereICome · 07/10/2011 22:41

I went to an all girls secondary school and if we were sent for a run the rather butch PE teacher would line us up and put her hand up our shirts to see if we were sweaty to be sure we had done the whole course.

Also DH remembers his male PE teacher lining them up naked for the showers and slapping their bums with a table tennis bat as they went in.

Must be something about PE teachers Hmm

incognitofornow · 07/10/2011 22:47

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bibbitybobbityhat · 07/10/2011 22:48

My form teacher invited the entire class (we were about 13/14) to her wedding.

Imaminda · 07/10/2011 23:16

My physics teacher at Grammar School strung up one boy on a pulley and hung him from the ceiling for a 2 period lesson, for talking in class. His parents complained as he had rope burns under his arms and were told (allegedly) to send him to another school then. He was rumoured to be an ex-remand school teacher. It did me no good as I couldnt learn anything in his lessons afterwards and dropped the subject. Board rubbers were thrown at kids for talking and we had the cane, but not the girls only boys. And if you wore nail varnish you had to go to the science lab and pay to have it removed lol

leftmydignityatthedoor · 07/10/2011 23:35

Primary - our teacher was lovely but she used to selotape food to her living room window, let birds fly into said window to get food, die, then bring them in to school in a tupperware box for us to 'examine'. We were 4.

Also primary - if you coughed it was 'disgusting' and you had to stand in the corner until lunch / hometime.

Secondary - lovely teacher but threw a chair at a boy and came in and apologised next day.

Secondary - evil teacher - hated me - made me stand up in class and encouraged people to laugh at me, also tore up a picture I'd done which had taken me ages. Oh and put me in. Bottom set and other teachers sneaked me out and into top set.

Secondary - one teacher sat and cried at his desk regulaly. s

NatashaBee · 08/10/2011 01:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

iarebaboon · 08/10/2011 08:29

Our old wordwork teacher was about 125 and walked around smoking a pipe. The whole school smelt of it. He had created a little room at the back of his classroom behind some tall cupboards. It had a fireplace with an electric fire in it and pictures on the mantle piece. It had armchairs and fish in a tank. We used to go there when we should have been in pe lessons. Happy times Smile

HouseOfBamboo · 08/10/2011 08:42

One who always had a bit of a mad gleam in her eye used to put 9 year olds over her knee and thrash them in front of the rest of the class.

legspinner · 08/10/2011 08:53

oh my, where to start....but we also had flying blackboard rubbers....mostly well-aimed.

Headmaster at primary school used to kick kids he didn't like.

Secondary school - a PE teacher who used to go round twanging our bra straps in the changing rooms. The same PE teacher used to send us out on cross-country runs and drive round the route in her car, puffing away on her ciggie, exhorting us to "run faster, girls!" Ritual humiliation was the norm - instead of races to find out who was the fastest, she held races to find out who was the slowest in the class Shock

A Maths teacher was really strict and used to give us the same maths test over and over again till everybody had got 10 out of 10. Of course humiliation for the last person in the class to get 10 out of 10. She also taught us how to knit with cotton and biros. When we were a bit older she told us how she had survived the Holocaust, but a lot of her family hadn't. She ended up hiding in the cupboard one day and had a nervous breakdown Sad.

Another Maths teacher (student) hated our class and once gave us a test, only to throw all of our work in the bin at the end of the lesson and said "This is what I think of your work!"

The teachers at my DB's school were real bullies, esp the PE ones (what is it about old-school PE teachers?) A friend of mine was made to run cross-country in bare feet in the snow as he'd forgotten his PE kit. The same teacher once poured water down a boy's trousers as he had done something wrong.

Some of them were OK though - some of us 6th form girls played basketball in the same mixed team as the teachers (as not enough female teachers) and they always plied us with drinks in the pub afterwards.

floradora · 08/10/2011 20:54

My Primary teacher (I would have been 6 or 7) used to send me out to the shops with her shopping list during lessons, because I was sensible. She also once sent me to ask another teacher if she wanted a lift home after school - I couldn't remember which room number I was meant to go to so I lied and said, "no she said she doesn't need a lift". Hope they didn't fall out over that Blush

kajosem · 09/10/2011 21:32

I was once kicked up the backside in a music lesson whilst I was leant over a desk talking to another girl. I can still feel it today. Her shoe went right up my crotch!

madam52 · 10/10/2011 09:08

One of my teachers - this was in the late sixties early seventies - used to use one of those long poles with the hook on the end (for opening high windows) to hook naughty pupils with by their cardies or jumpers and then pull them to the front of the class. He once made a hole in mine and I went home and told my mum (was about 6-7yrs old) and guess who she was mad at. Yeah me Confused. No spending money for an age to replace it but then she repaired it and didnt bother Angry. Can you imagine the hoo -ha that would cause today with the H&S brigade etc. It was a miracle he never impaled any of us though.

madam52 · 10/10/2011 09:15

Oh and I was also taught by nuns for some lessons and I'm left handed and one of them used to rap my knuckles and knock the pencil out of my left hand while ranting about it being a sign of the devil (being left-handed).

I was only 5 ffs. Again can you imagine today Shock

Bonsoir · 10/10/2011 09:26

My Year 3 teacher made all the overweight children in the class stand on their desks and pointed out to the rest of us that they were "plump" Shock

mumofamonkey · 10/10/2011 16:56

bit late at joining thread, but where oh where to start?! my primary school teacher used to insist on trying to fit both hands around the girls' waists to illustrate how small the victorian women were in their stays, used to ask for volounteers too, wonder why there were none. i managed to be one of the priveledged few who was given the great honour of being squished!

Planetofthegrapes · 11/10/2011 01:53

School quiz at all girls church school.

The quiz-setting teacher was known to frequent the local boozers. Hence one round where you had to complete the local pub names (although to be fair the town was a famous for old coaching inns so many unusual pub names).

As she was also known to enjoy her ciggies, we then expected a round featuring cigarette brand names!

purpleprudence · 11/10/2011 21:55

At primary school in the sixties I had a very strange teacher whose classroom was filled with snakes , crocodiles , salamanders , frogs and toads . We helped look after them , played with them and feed them live animals . Lord knows where he got them from Don't think elfnsafety had been invented then .

lindy100 · 19/12/2011 19:28

In the early 90s, one particularly scary male teacher made an argumentative girl run out of the back door of the mobile, touch the fence and run back. As we were silently watching her, he turned to us all and said 'must be her time of the month.

I should add he was a biology teacher. At a girls' school.

Jackin · 18/04/2012 13:39

Shameless bump, and to say we had a teacher who would pick up the boys and use them as board dusters. Also one day a teacher friend of mine passed a boy lying on the ground outside the classroom, he went in and said "you realize Mr x that there is a boy lying on the ground outside?" And was told that he was in the dirt where he belongs!
Another time, end of term we had to move all the lockers around the school. So some went missing and a stone henge was built in the tennis courts area.

funkybuddah · 18/04/2012 17:44

My year 3 teacher used to jab us on the forehead with her warty finger when telling us off/making a point

sweetkitty · 18/04/2012 17:50

Our Art teacher used to disappear into his cupboard for his special "water" as he couldn't drink the tap water. He also used to wear a scarf as he had a cold and didn't want us catching it. He stank of vodka and was half pissed. He would regularly disappear for weeks on end (his equally barking RE teacher wife would tell us he was drying out)! We used to ask to see his portfolio knowing there were naked drawings of his wife in it.

doinmummy · 18/04/2012 18:44

If anyone misbehaved in Biology the teacher made them do an animal impression whilst walking round the classroom. Alison J doing a rabbit impression was the funniest thing I'd ever seen but we dare not laugh else we'd be next.

ProfCoxWouldGetIt · 30/04/2012 11:08

OMG too many to mention, a few that stand out

PE teacher in secondary - if you said you couldn't do swimming due to "that time of the month" she would feel your belly to check for sweeling to validate this.

Various teachers throwing black board erasers at students for not listening

Maths teacher in secondary - threw a kid out of the 1st floor window for not doing his homework, same teacher also kicked a desk at a kid for talking, also used to slam kids fingers in the desk if they were caught writing on the desks (The mums all knew this, buyt it was just accepted that he had high expectations of his students)

Class teacher in primary - got edge of steel ruler across the knuckles as someone hadn't put their name on their homework and the hand writing looked like mine

Sience teacher in Secondary used to have a pet pupil who he'd have sitting at his desk and used to rub her thighs through out the lesson (granted he was cute and very young and she was 18 - but still!)