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

[muriel76]

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?!

My form tutor was much loved by everyone (sadly passed away recently) he was diabetic and would send students to the shop for marsbars abd cans of coke.
His rages were legendary! We all knew it was his bloodsugar causing it and just let him have a rant one boy was a complete troublemaker, decided to push his luck and keep pushing, eventually mr m got the rage and picked up an art stool and launched it across the room at him, boy ran off to the head to complain and insist he was fired, mr m went and sat in his store cupbourd and looked convinced he would be sacked what with 35 witnesses in the room, when the investigation started and we were interviewed individually about what had happened everyone unprompted said the same "we saw nothing, nothing happened" mr m kept his job and the boy got lots of detentions.
Shortly after we left school the Boy went missing, with a massive missing persons search, three months later he was found in the river he'd taken drugs and fallen in.
This was 1998-1999 so schools were cracking down on discipline and the kids knew it.

She wouldn't be fired but primary school teacher called us 10 year olds "cretins" because we hadn't heard of Chernobyl (this was 1990).

High school teacher threw a duster at a 14yo classmate for talking. She fled the room in tears. Teacher gave the rest of us a talking to, telling us not to let our hormones rule us.

Another high sch teacher was a volunteer firefighter and would run out of the class when the siren went. Kids liked going to his ,maths class on the off chance he'd have to leave in a hurry.

I went to a catholic primary school (90's) and at 7 years old I was made to stand on a chair in the corner of the room and hold a massive bible with outstretched arms because I spelt rhododendron wrong.

We were also told that we would burn in hell if we did not atyend churxh with both our mother and father present. ( pretty hard with an absent father tjat one)

Ive never seen my mum so mad in my entire life when she found this out!

we had an art teacher who sprayed perfume in your ear if u werent paying attention...it was always horrible stuff that you couldnt wash the smell away.

The usual board rubbers chucked. There was one teacher that twisted a mates ear so hard that it bled - nothing was said!

We had a chemistry teacher who would put his left hand on your head, with his wedding ring touching it & then hit the top of it with his clenched fist - felt like it cracked your skull!

Was messing around in Indoor Games once so the teacher made me bend over & touch my toes & then whacked me as hard as he could with a cricket bat. It hurt so much I couldn't cry!!

Drama detention where I had to write about a film I'd seen, I did "American Werewolf in London" & the teacher liked the sound of it so much she went to see it.

Ashtrays on desks, trips to france where everyone bought flick knives & then threw them overboard before we reached the UK.

Being made to eat mince with lumps of gristle in it, throwing up on the plate & then being made to keep eating the un-vommed bits by a horrible, warty dinner lady....

The Army was a breeze after that lot!!

I've just recalled a shocker.. at my junior school, about late 70s/ early 80s.. my two friends would regularly wait outside the smoke filled staffroom, and ask for the fag ends! Our form teacher would deal them out to these two little girls (who were about 9 at the time) without a word said.. they'd then go off behind the bike sheds and smoke them with a nicked lighter!

I trained to be a teacher in the 1980s and I can remember the lectures on behaviour and discipline, giving a list of management strategies which listed throwing chalk, throwing rubber and throwing blackboard rubber! The lecturer just said 'erm, ignore points 3,4 and 5 on the list as they aren't legal anymore!!' Even then we were all a bit gobsmacked!

I got stood out for being left handed ! Early 80's !!!

Geography teacher who would always drag up on the last night of the field trip not really sure why
Head teacher who was a theatre fan fancied going to the RSC every year so would organise a coach trip. We'd be left to our own devices and unchaperoned to wander around Stratford from arrival to the start of the performance.
French/PE teacher was a legend. Belonged to the metre rule/blackboard duster school of discipline but also created the "red hand gang" for boys who forgot towels etc. they'd be walloped on their bare bum until he left a red handprint...

My chemistry teacher, realising that I was never going to be Marie Curie used to let me do the homework of subjects that I was good at in his lessons. He did demand that I memorise the shorthand version of different chemicals and minerals, just so he could take the shame out of eye. He couldn't understand how somebody could be so good at the "reasoning" subjects and be so utterly crap at the "logical" subjects. Miss Moskowicz, my maths teacher was not so charitable. Once she saw that I was very good at mental arithmetic, she convinced herself that I had aptitude for maths. Little did she know that I forced myself to have competence in adding and subtracting as I did not want to be ripped off in my adult life! What Christ use has Triginomtry (I can't even be bothered to look up the correct spelling, so traumatised I am still about it) in real life?

This all happened about three or four years ago at my very nice girls grammar:
Physics teacher locked someone in a cupboard and left them there for the whole lesson because they were talking (still teaching, Head of Science)
English teacher had what must have been a nervous breakdown in front of my class and started hitting himself, on his knees whilst saying "I'm hurting now girls, is that what you want?" (we were all very uncomfortable because all we'd done was ask for some essays back)
Same teacher, when asked if he'd marked some practice coursework threw them all in the bin and stamped on it, because it wasn't worth his time. He hadn't even read them.
(He took some time off for his "mental health" shortly afterwards.
And at the boys school, the PE teacher in charge of cross-country still chases the boys on his bike.

I can remember 1 accompanying a girl to the toilet to wash her mouth out with soap for swearing in class! Another teacher stapled a piece of card around a boys neck to make him look like a vicar and made him sit on a chair in front of everyone for the duration of the lesson as punishment for messing around in class. This was a church of England school in the mid 80's.

when I was in P7 ('78) in our country primary, two girls were the headmaster's secretaries, answering the phone and redirecting calls to the Canteen etc.

One of my pals was Dyslexic (sp?) and the teacher who ran a private tutoring business outside school called him a moron and would never come to anything. when he graduated with his Phd , my mate invited the git as a guest to the ceremony! needless to say he didn't reply.

one of the best teachers I have ever experienced taught me junior biology. doing anaerobic respiration she demonstrated how to make wine and told us how one of her pals had done it and screwed the top tight onto the bottle, which then exploded. the room was left smelling "like a brothel" and she was picking glass out of books for months. she went on to train teachers in Uni and was also an inspector. bumped into her in a coffee shop after 30 years and she remembered my name straight away.

in 5th form our physics teacher would often go for a wander. one of my classmate was off the scale genius and used the unsupervised time to rig a solenoid to the metal door handle. as the rooms were all connected through stores and prep rooms, the teachers were forever popping into the next room. well, the next door teacher looked in asked Where's mr X? was told "our for a wander" then he noticed the wires to the door. he asked what was going on, and Dave explained that he'd rigged the door to give Mr X a shock when he returned. the teacher then got out his calculator and CHECKED THE MATHS, before deciding that the shock wouldn't be fatal and then called his own class and two lab techs to come into the room to watch!!

the shock blew the poor guy across the corridor........

when I became a teacher I took over from a guy who had resigned to concentrate on his taxi business. fair enough, but he was famous for getting calls during class from his wife who operated as dispatcher, then he'd leave work for the class (tech drawing) and disappear to take the fare! this was the mid noughties......

When I was in the tech room and my HOD was at the other end of the school in the drawing office, he would send me notes on a full sheet of A1 drawing paper, and I would send 4 kids back with a reply written on a 8 x 4 sheet of plywood!

and one that I did, right up til my early retirement last year..... if a kid came (AGAIN) complaining of a headache and wanting sent home I'd say, "I'm a first aider. I can sort you out, come down to the workshop" I'd open a vice and tell them to put their hand in.

they'd look all confused and ask why.

"because when I tighten the vice, you'll forget all about the headache and go to PE instead of trying to mitch!"

NO ONE ever put their hand in, and NO ONE ever tried it twice!!

Constant talker having his mouth taped up so he couldn't speak throughout the lesson

Constantly sleepy child having an official 'poker' who was required to jab him in the ribs every five minutes.

Our PE teacher (male) always used to come in the female dressing rooms under the pretence of making sure we were ready for his class but was a bit of a creep watching us get changed. Complaints were made but nothing got done about it

I told my daughter today that when i was naughty at school we had to
go outside the class room, face the wall with our hands on our heads.

She could not understand this at all. Clearly doesn't happen these days!

I recall blackboard rubbers chucked at heads and a maths teacher hitting a child round the head with a thick text book.

A boy that swore got marched to the kitchen by the head master and had his mouth washed out with soap.

Junior school
Assembles consisted of headmaster playing country and western song on his guitar for 2 hours twice a week. All other teachers were is the staff room chatting and smoking. He played in a group so this was probably his practice time.
Our climbing frame was a bike shed with the roof taken off.
on school residential trips male teachers came in the room to give girl pupils a good night kiss.
Secondary. Yes teachers smoking in class was normal and throwing anything they could get their hands on at pupils.
A woman teacher in her 50’s used to sit cross legged on her desk wearing a very short dress.
One teacher threw a boy into a dark stock cupboard and locked the door during a lesson.
Another child was hooked onto a peg.
Teachers driving to pubs at lunchtime and coming back smelling off drink.
Racist abuse towards pupils.
This was late seventies.
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Primary school: male teacher used to throw the chalkboard rubber at us when we weren't concentrating (a hard wooden one)

Secondary school: another male teacher used to grab us by the ear and drag us into his storage cupboard and lock us in there if we were talking during lessons. He also called the girls, 'silly little husseys' if they were misbehaving and the boys 'little pricks' if they were misbehaving.

The same teacher also used to tell anyone who dared to back chat 'get your father in and we will see what I can do to shut him up too'

Absolutely mental. Even worse, teeling your parents these things and them saying "well, better start concentrating/behaving then" 🤣😂 how times have changed

70’s crap secondary. First lesson Geography. Teacher would post a kid in the corridor as lookout for deputy head. Then would get out flask of tea and toast and eat her break fast. Rest of class would colour in a map to keep us quiet, mixed ability class. Did this every week for two years we had her. Monthly staff meeting left 600 kids with no supervision, was like Lord Of The Flies

There's people who pay handsomely for that treatment in London...

... And elsewhere I'll be bound!

not at all - if that was a miracle you would never have been born.
At 5 I was catching the bus home on my own. At 7, I was taking my under 5 year old sister home on 2 buses and when she got to she did the 2 buses on her own. Your experience was the norm not the exception.

Secondary school music teacher stood in front of the piano with his hands in the air plonking the keys and said 'I'm playing it with my thing'. I don't think our class was ever so quiet.

I've just seen that it's a really old thread!!

We had a teacher at junior school who if we looked like we were dozing off used to wave smelling salts under our noses!!

My school was in the countryside and kept geese in a pen. When my brother was disruptive the teacher made him stand inside the pen with the angry geese and told him that if he moved a muscle they’d break his arm!