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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:
jenniec79 · 27/09/2011 19:47

First primary (mid 80s) - Allowed myself and friend to walk home aged 5 with the only assistance being the presence of a lollipop lady outside the gates.

Second primary (mid to late 80s, we moved) same deal with bus stop to home - about half a mile and later on had DB in tow. Allowed to use the hot glue gun, paper guillotine (a safety one) etc ourselves, and to make a model with our own electricals in it aged 8. Capri-sun pouches and chocolates/crisps in lunchboxes as & when, treat-sized things for the whole class on birthdays, full on party arranged by us on our class teacher's birthday as a surprise for her, and just put class on hold for the day (2 years running!). No teacher ever listened to me read at that school. I also wasn't noticed leaving my classroom (the mobile in the playground) to wander off to the advanced recorder group because I was bored with the beginners group I was put in initially when we moved there - I was out of the class for about 30mins!

Its almost a miracle I survived at all!!

Francagoestohollywood · 27/09/2011 19:48

Our teacher of Italian literature and Latin at secondary school was an excellent teacher. But she tended to lit a cigarette in desperation, whenever her students weren't able to answer her questions Grin

MrsBlarney · 27/09/2011 19:48

Cyb, we had a PE teacher who would grab your towel and dry you herself (rather vigorously) if you took too long getting changed after swimming.

Actually I only remember that happening to me...Hmm

Alibabaandthe80nappies · 27/09/2011 19:48

We had an English supply teacher in secondary who, if you could persuade him would spend most of the lesson saving imaginary football goals and hurling himself around the classroom.
He was also brilliant at teaching Shakespeare.

Thinking back he was clearly suffering some mental health problems, I suspect he wouldn't have a job these days.

We also had a Maths teacher - again supply I think - who used to walk about the room clutching a meter length piece of 2x4 wood. If he thought you weren't paying sufficient attention this would come whistling down infront of your nose or next to your hand.

ImperialBlether · 27/09/2011 19:49

We had a nun teaching us RE and a friend in the class was writing limericks. She was hilarious and her poems were always filthy. She got found out - the nun started with the sarcasm, "Oh writing poetry, are we? Well let's see what the class thinks of it, shall we?"

It was in rhyming couplets and of course one ended with "hunt" - it was so obvious even to the nun how the next line was going to end.

We were all thrown out of class halfway through the lesson - only the poet could remain. She crouched in a corner whilst the nun threw the tables and chairs at her. Luckily for us the door was glass, so we could all see our friend and hear her yelling "Ouch!" "Fuck!" etc as she was battered by all the furniture.

WeShouldOpenABar · 27/09/2011 19:50

primary school teacher i had from about 6-9 used to lift the boys by their ears to place them standing on their desk so he could scream directly into their faces- not the girls though

secondary school english teacher covered in his breakfast from two weeks previous used to drop his pen under our desks and try and look up our skirts, he left to join the dept of education in a quite senior role!

LRDTheFeministDragon · 27/09/2011 19:51

Great thread! Grin

My teacher (90s) knew he wasn't allowed to touch a pupil, but he had a really firey temper and one lad wound him up no end. One day the teacher picked up the boy's chair (boy included), and lifted it through the open window onto the flowerbed outside, then shut the window.

We were also counted in and out of the shower and they'd glance in to see we were washing properly after games ... we were 11-16 years old! Ewwww!

cyb · 27/09/2011 19:51

Imperial she offered at the end of a sex education lesson during PE.

We also had those showers where you ran through in a 'U' shape. She was always holding our towels at the other end and we had to stand there while she found our towel for us

SuePurblybilt · 27/09/2011 19:51

Primary - naughty boys had to stand in the waste paper bin

Secondary - teachers frisbee-ing homework books across the classroom to return them. That hurt.

SamsGoldilocks · 27/09/2011 19:53

nearly putting out their cigarette on my finger instead of passing me a piece of chalk to write on the board - early 80's. This was the headmistress as well who taught the top class

MrsBlarney · 27/09/2011 19:53

Imperial Shock

We also had a brilliant geog teacher. He would kind of stay right by the desk and it looked like he was rubbing against it for the entire lesson.

Someone put a load of chalk on the edge of the desk once. Poor chap. He was sound, just a little fidgety and I don't think he deserved it. Merciless we were.

ImperialBlether · 27/09/2011 19:54

Yes, funnily enough our PE teacher always made sure she was by the end of the shower run.

I do remember one of the girls having a love bite on her backside and the PE teacher demanding to see it. (It was a bite from another girl in the class.)

ImperialBlether · 27/09/2011 19:55

I think when the teachers could "use their initiative" school was a lot more enjoyable. You never really knew what would happen in the day.

TapselteerieO · 27/09/2011 19:56

We had a teacher who would lift you off your feet by grabbing your hair, another teacher we'd find lying drunk on the floor - he was very ill and the other teachers kept it quiet, a music teacher who threw blackboard dusters and wasn't too bothered who got hit, they are the ones I can remember.

Primary school teacher would send us out on the road to measure distance, no pavement, unsupervised.

oldsilver · 27/09/2011 19:56

Late 70/early 80's our Head of Year called an assembly, asked all the teachers to leave, got the worse behaving kids on the stage and punched one of them in the stomach. Threatening that if we told anyone no-one would be believe us as he was a high figure in the local church Shock

My form tutor ended up with a girl in the year above me ... after she'd left school (only by a year or so)!

Pixel · 27/09/2011 19:56

Our french teacher was always sitting on girls' laps. We used to dread it if we needed a new exercise book because we would have to fetch it from the big cupboard and he would invariably squeeze in there with us to 'help us look for it'.

leddeeburdee · 27/09/2011 19:57

Primary - anyone who was caught kicking/ fighting had to spend the rest of the day wearing a big clapperboard sign round their neck that said 'I'm a donkey and I kick' Shock

C0smos · 27/09/2011 19:58

I used to walk the head teachers dog in my lunch break, she paid me in boiled sweets.

At secondary school, we had an entire term of unsupervised swimming 'lessons' no idea what the PE teacher was doing. We used to take the floor mats throw them in the pool and run across them for an hour!

Fiderer · 27/09/2011 19:58

Primary teacher, used to put on a record (classical music) and whack children on the tips of their fingers with a baton in time to the music.
Bloody hurt.

ImperialBlether · 27/09/2011 19:59

Oldsilver - just out of interest (as obviously that was appalling) did the children's behaviour change afterwards?

dilbertina · 27/09/2011 19:59

At primary the teacher used to slam the desk lids down on the fingers of anyone not paying attention. Boys used to "get the slipper" - but not the girls. He was the headmaster too and his wife also taught in the school, they had a house attached and they used to take us all to sit in their living room to birdwatch.

One of the dinner ladies lost her wedding ring in a carpark near my house, she told me and I found it! I got double pudding for the next 3 years Grin.

MrsBlarney · 27/09/2011 20:00

I do wonder reading this what stories our own children might tell one day. I hope to God it's nothing as bad as we went through.

Though some of them are very funny and inspiring...the nicer ones I mean.

notnowImreading · 27/09/2011 20:00

We also had a nun who used to go busking dressed as the most menacing father Christmas ever (complete with yellow beard and guitar). One of the other nuns taught sex education, including how to check for fertile times of the month through examination of CM, which she demonstrated with egg White. I'd completely forgotten about that till I came on here ttc. Very useful lesson, except possibly less than reliable for 15 yr olds.

libelulle · 27/09/2011 20:01

I had a primary teacher who'd lift misbehaving kids up by the ear too (and no gender bias either!) then lock them in the cupboard. Early 80s but in France, so more like 1950s/60s in the uk in terms of attitudes. Secondary teachers were a motley crew. One had severe mental health issues - used to see him chatting to the trees in the playground before lessons, poor man, though he was such a sadistic teacher my sympathy is limited. No way would he last five minutes in a classroom today. Maths teacher used to write a deliberately incomprehensible stream of figures on the board, then get us to copy it out for the rest of the lesson while he read Greek tragedies to himself at his desk. Learnt literally no maths for three years before he was finally sacked. They were a gruesome bunch!

maddiemostmerry · 27/09/2011 20:01

History teacher used to make you stand in the waste paper bin if you were naughty. He also use to hold "thicko's detention" He would tell stories of former students, usually in prison. (went to very rough London school)

Maths teacher, informed the class that he had "got rid of all the coons" by moving them out of his setShock He was also very odd, shaking his trousers and saying that his balls were stuck.

French teacher smoked a pipe around school, you could find him by the smell.