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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:
MortBlackCatsandWitch · 28/09/2011 11:42

I've told this on here before but we had to touch the corpse of our dead priest laid out in the chapel. It was supposed to cleanse us of our sins Hmm - i was 7....i had nightmares for weeks afterwards as my guitar case was "coffin" shaped and he kept sitting up in it.....

Dead bodies don't bother me now btw - so no lasting damage....

limitedperiodonly · 28/09/2011 11:44

There was a sign outside the physics prep room that said: 'Knock once and wait.'

You'd knock once and waste your entire break. The second time it happened to me I knocked once then knocked again about a minute later.

The physics teacher yanked the door open and shouted: 'Can't you read?

I said yes, but the first knock had come from another girl who'd gone off. I asked if I could hand over my work seeing as he was standing there. He took it.

What the hell was wrong with these people? If they didn't want to be disturbed on a break they could have just installed a letter box.

And here was I thinking you went into teaching because you vaguely liked young people

limitedperiodonly · 28/09/2011 11:50

Bugsy The edge of the ruler on the back of the knuckles never happened to me but happened to my brother frequently in primary school. Nuns aren't quite as nice as they look, are they Wink

onehellofaride · 28/09/2011 12:06

I had an absolutely lovely teacher in yr 6. One day one boy came in with three broken fingers, another boy punched them as he thought it would be funny so the teacher rapped him over the head with a shatterproof ruler and snapped it. He wasn't hurt just shocked. She would never get away with that now Grin

LeQueen · 28/09/2011 12:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

slug · 28/09/2011 12:36

I had a chemistry teacher who, while writing on the board, could turn around, hurl a piece of chalk with devatating accuracy and be back, unconcernedly writing on the board again before the chalk hit the target.

Nuns... With one fantastic exception, all the ones that taught me were psycotic.

As a teacher, I sometimes regretted not being able to utilise a well aimed piece of chalk. I had to resort to "the seat of shame", the seat in the front, closest tothe teacher's desk. It was usually a fairly potent threat. e.g. "Joseph! Are you going to desist from talking to your friends all class, or will I have to move you to the seat of shame?"

harrietthespook · 28/09/2011 12:54

Trying to give me and various other girls a great big slobbery tounge kiss.

He was 80 and had been chief translator at the Nuremburg Trials in WWII. Taught French in retirement. Went to Uni with Dr Seuss. Published books on grave stones in New England. He was untouchable in a school that valued 'eccentricity.'

Conundrumish · 28/09/2011 13:18

Some of these are horrible and very sad.

ripstheirthroatoutliveupstairs · 28/09/2011 13:20

LeQ did your DH go to school in Manchester? sounds remarkably like DHs except he was taken out to the pub by his teachers and, on one occasion given so much sherry he puked.
My teachers have been a mix of the bizarre and cruel. I am very old (47) so have seen corporal punishment at first hand. Horrible.
One of our best teachers at junior school brought his little dog in every day. The dog was a small mongrel who piddled everywhere. Mr Jones would just send the closest pupil or the one who spotted it to call the caretaker.
Another teacher would let us ride on the bonnet of his car as he drove into the playground. The same one who would let us strike his Swan Vestas on the ground to light his cigarettes.
Since DH is a teacher, I've seen strangeness from the other side. One teacher at DHs school was firmly against corporal punishment. Any pupil who misbehaved would have to go to Dr Xs house to weed the garden.
Another was having a two year long affair with a student. They did go on to marry, but DH and another colleague were horrified and reported it to the head.
Head said he was aware but since he was retiring that year he wouldn't do anything.

BrigitBigKnickers · 28/09/2011 13:30

One of my colleague friends once sellotaped one of her pupils to his chair as he kept getting up and walking round the class!Grin

One of my pervy science teachers used to lean over thye desk (with a hand each side) and look down the girls blouses. Also tried to undo a girls bra with a powerful magnet.

changer22 · 28/09/2011 13:40

One of mine (geography) sat in the cupboard and cried for the lesson. Another time she opened the windows when it was snowing and the ink ran off our books. It was to 'wake' us up.

Another (science) told us that we had done a potentially dangerous experiment and if anyone told a policeman the caretaker would go to prison Shock. Caretaker was mute and was in the classroom at the time.

The PE teacher said to a boy after my (asthmatic) friend had beaten him in a race, 'how does it feel to be beaten by a cripple?'

The deputy head of the same school used to give another friend breathing lessons (?) for a school play by standing behind her holding her ribs alone in his office. She was 12.

Another (home ed) used to do her washing in the school washing machines - meant for the tea towels. We used to laugh as we saw the classic huge white y fronts going round.

And one told my friend's class (Y4) that sex was a special thing she and her husband did once a year!!!

All the same school. England in the early 80s.

WhipMeIndiana · 28/09/2011 13:42

holy shit! if anyone touched my daughter's ribs I would throttle the bastard! that was one fecking creepy school you went to Hmm

lisamaria · 28/09/2011 13:45

An English teacher of mine used to be housed in the school library and lessons with him consisted of us browsing/causing mayhem in the library whilst he tapped away on a type writer and chain smoked. Found out later he was quite a prolific short story contributor for mags such as People's Friend and Women's weekly. God knows what OFTED would have said or rather, hw he would rise to an OTSTED inspection!!!

GooseyLoosey · 28/09/2011 13:46

One of my primary school teachers had a 1m wooden ruler he called "Itchy". If anyone annoyed him too much he shouted "Itchy is twitchy" and if they annoyed him again, Itchy twitched! Oddly, I remember him as a good teacher.

WhipMeIndiana · 28/09/2011 13:56

we had an english teacher who would purposely drop pens onto the floor to look up the girls' skirts..
in every school it seems there is a perve somewhere Hmm

ladybutterfly1 · 28/09/2011 14:04

i had a teacher where his breath smelled of booze and fags all day. and was bad tempered. i can still remember his name till this day.

PoweredbyTea · 28/09/2011 14:07

We had a 'Home Economics' teacher who was like someone out of a Chalet school novel. Went to a not-bad but pretty standard state secondary and she was just so out of place. I think she wanted to be teaching at a 'finishing school' in the 1950s. (This was mid-90s)

She would drift around commenting on whose skirts were too short and telling us what it took to be 'elegant' and which of us she thought would never amount to anything / attract a good husband if we didn't buck our ideas up. She was meant to be teaching us sewing but I don't remember making anything apart from one pillow case and surely that can't have taken a year...

LauraShigihara · 28/09/2011 14:08

Mid-seventies primary school, we had a new female class teacher fresh from college. She wore heels, full makeup, very tight clothing and all the daddies loved her (the mothers were not so keen)

As we were in a hut rather than the main building, she ran the class like her own private fiefdom. We could call her by her first name, bring sweets to eat in class and generally piss around instead of working. Her boyfriend spent many happy hours perched in the room and they would snog like teenagers. She would flirt outrageously with the boys and bitch, argue and namecall the girls, pointing out our attractiveness or otherwise (we were ten). It was like Lord Of The Sodding Flies in there, with her as the oldest child and the rest of us in our pecking order.

We also had a very outspoken music teacher who would have huge rows with the only male teacher who fancied himself as a Jazz muscian. The piano lid in the Hall was regularly crashed down in Hymn Practise and the shouting would start. Brilliant fun.

FeastofBeans · 28/09/2011 14:08

A music teacher who would throw wooden board rubbers at pupils. The same teacher would put his arm round our waist to pull us in closer whilst marking our theory books. He also kept cans of beer in the music storeroom filing cabinet.

My infants school teacher (female) made us touch tongues but I don't know why. I posted this here before once and was accused of making it up and being a paedophile Hmm

It sort of pales into insignificance compared to my friend who had a PE teacher (female) who would slap them all on their bare bums as they ran out of the shower.

kellzi · 28/09/2011 14:10

sacked mine would be in prison. one of my teachers would throw the chalk board wiper at you and quite often it would hit. and my swimming teacher would throw you in the pool and hoped you didnt sink. i am still here to tell the tale thank god

PoweredbyTea · 28/09/2011 14:10

Oh and of course there was the teacher who had a two-year affair with a sixth-form student AND DIDN'T GET FIRED. And I'm sure other teachers knew about it.

sittinginthesun · 28/09/2011 14:14

We had the lot :)

Teachers getting off with pupils;
Teachers marrying ex pupils;
An alcoholic head who used to wander round in a drunken haze;
Teachers throwing rubbers/books at pupils

and my favourite - Husband and Wife teachers in same department. He was under the thumb and scared of his own shadow. the boys used to tie him to his chair, or lock him in the stock cupboard. He would shout for his wife, who was terrifying, and she was storm in, giving out detentions in her wake, and shout at him for his inability to control his class.

Amazing I got an eduation really...

LauraShigihara · 28/09/2011 14:24

In secondary school, late seventies, we had the elderly but creepy Biology teacher, the Art teacher who had affairs with the sixth former girls, the, ahem, rather manly female PE teacher and her male counterpart who would physically fight any boy who was getting a bit big for his boots (Teach always won!)

I had forgotten until I read someone say earlier - we also had a Maths teacher who would staple ties to the board while you were still wearing it.

He also had a special trick for very unruly older boys. They would be dragged into the class with the younger children and made to bend over with their head under the doorhandle. Out came the cane, and if the offender attempted to straighten up, they would whack their skull on the door handle.

Huge humiliation for the big lad and a sobering lesson for the younger ones. Double whammy (actually triple if you count the caning)

FeastofBeans · 28/09/2011 14:38

One of mine actually IS in prison! Not saying why, for fear of outing myself :o Bizarrely even when it all came out what he'd done, most members of staff said it wasn't actually that bad and stuck up for him. A few left the teaching profession altogether in disgust.

I had a swimming teacher who wouldn't let us get out of the pool using the steps, we had to haul ourselves out of the side. Me and my friend weren't strong enough and were practically drowning whilst she stood bellowing at us from the side, and all the other kids just looked at us sympathetically. Way to encourage kids to swim, love. Wattabitch!

NoNoNoMYDoIt · 28/09/2011 14:52

1970s - private girls school. we weren't allowed to go to the toilet during lessons. so if, in kindergarten or transition (YR / Y1), you needed to go to the toilet, you had to wait until break time. if your bladder control wasn't the best and you wet yourself, the teacher would declare 'i can smell urine. up on your desks' and all of us had to stand on our desks while she came around and lifted our skirts one by one to check our pants... ridicule, humiliation etc followed for whichever poor mite had weed themselves.

thwack of the ruler on the knuckles in the same classes for not paying attention etc.

the termly check that all your clothes were labelled AND that you were wearing regulation and labelled knickers. that was nice for the girls just starting senior school who had a male form teacher and had to show him the label in their pants. honestly - what WAS the school thinking??