this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
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[–] theKalash@feddit.ch 98 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

My primaryschool maths teacher taught us roman numerals and one of the tasks we got was to write out the current year in roman numerals.

I came up with MCMXCVIII ... to which he smugly replied that it's wrong and the romans were a lot more clever and it's just IIMM (take 2 off 2000).

Years later I learned that he was quite wrong about that and my answer is in fact the only correct one.

[–] dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net 25 points 1 year ago

TFW your school insists you learn something utterly pointless and then the teacher teaches it completely wrong.

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[–] cmhickman358@thelemmy.club 65 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"I gave you a 98 because I don't give out 100's." Even though I got everything right, I couldn't get the grade I deserved because of some high school health teacher's ego.

[–] thoro@lemmy.ml 50 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I had a university professor give me a 99 on a written exam because "only Jesus is perfect".

I didn't really care but it's also something I may never forget because of how bizarre I found it

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 53 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

In fifth grade, we had this medieval month where we all built castles and competed in events to earn a knighthood. You only had to earn like three medals out of maybe 10 different games, like throw a ball into a circle, or make another student laugh.

Every contest, the students were helping each other, or bending the rules, and the teacher was like "whatever." Except for me. I didn't earn a single medal, and everytime it was close, I got fucked by the rules. There was one I remember vividly, because my thrown soccer ball was on the line, and was ruled out. Then another kid's ball was on the line, and his was ruled in. I complained to the teacher, and he went up and toed the other kid's ball into the circle.

That kid was then the one I had to make laugh. Every other jester attempt, kids were giving away laughs. Literally everyone got a courtesy chuckle, but I remember that fucking kid sitting there stone faced while I tried to tell him jokes knowing he'd never laugh no matter what I did or said.

Looking back, I'm sure I was probably an insufferable twat about the rules or something, but I was 10. I definitely believe that teacher had it out for me, and I was one of two kids who weren't knighted, the other having missed the games with mono. My classmates definitely had it out for me, and it was a miserable year all around, but I remember the moment I realized that the teacher was also one of my bullies.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 24 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Man that sucks, that teacher should know better, excluding 2 kids like that will definitely stay with them for a long long time. And what a perfect lesson plan for everyone to get knighted, that could lead right into knights of the round table and King Arthur, have everyone sit in a big circle and talk about his knights.

Stupid stupid teacher.

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[–] penquin@lemmy.kde.social 53 points 1 year ago (4 children)

4th year in college in a 3rd world country. Final exams. Last exam. About to graduate after an agonizing year of microbiology. I don't remember exactly what I did, but he saw me and thought I was cheating off of another student. I was not. Starts yelling at me. I start yelling back. Fails me on the last test on the very very very last day of the last year of college and I was about to go on with my life. I had to repeat the whole year because of him. College is different in my country. You fail one class, you fail the whole year. I still hate him to this day. When he dies, I'll go shit on his grave.

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[–] MorrisonMotel6@lemm.ee 42 points 1 year ago (2 children)

My dad was in construction (ran an excavator, mostly) when I was a kid. He found a large megalodon tooth in amazing condition at work and gave it to me. I brought it to school and my teacher took it from me. I never saw it again.

It's especially infuriating now because I know the value of teeth in that condition and size

[–] Nightsoul@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

That's fucked up, I would be seething if they happened to me

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[–] pixelscript@lemmy.ml 39 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

A middle school social studies teacher of mine gave me detention on numerous occasions because I refused to take notes in his class.

Partway into the year during parent-teacher conferences, where parents met with teachers to discuss their children's performance in class, the issue was brought up.

"Pixelscript is having some difficulties in my class. He is not taking notes during lectures. I've given him detention several times."

"Well that's strange, it says on his report card that he has an A in the class."

"Well, yes, he does extremely well on homework and tests, but you see, he doesn't take notes...."

"...Are you kidding me?!"

The greatest irony of the situation was that on the few occasions he forced me to take notes, it lessened my comprehension, because focusing on writing in real time during the lecture actively harmed my understanding of the lecture. God forbid a student actually listens to what you have to say...

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[–] Copythis@lemmy.world 38 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As a kid, I always took everything apart, because I can't help myself and I need to know how everything works. I still do it today (it's my job now!)

I'm 4th grade, I was taking apart my mechanical pencil and putting it back together, and my teacher took it, snapped it in half and under) threw it away.

She told me I'm no longer allowed to use mechanical pencils, I can only use wooden ones.

Since I didn't have a wooden one with me, I was sent to the hall the rest of class.

[–] radix@lemm.ee 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

They should be encouraging that behavior, seeing as it's so common that that curious behavior leads to techy jobs and all.

I'm so sorry for the theft and damage too. She could have just hidden it from you until the end of class or something, if she had to.

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[–] CADmonkey@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I had a high school math teacher who had me convinced I was too stupid to do the assignments. I literally couldn't do high school algebra. I had an average of 11% in that class, and she would tell everyone their grades each quarter. Out loud, in front of the class, and I had an 11%. Questions were met with "You really should know how to do this".

25 years later, and my lemmy shitposting is interrupted by a meeting where intelligent and talented people discuss drawings of a proposed building. Drawings that were created by me. For the building I was paid to design.

I can math just fine, when someone takes the time to show me how. Algebra, geometry, trig, I can do them all. But when I was a teenager, a supposedly smart and educated person had me convinced I couldn't figure it out.

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[–] sensiblepuffin@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was feeling saucy after having learned about the metric system, and for a lab report I deliberately wrote 125 mL as 1.25 dL. I lost half of a letter grade for that.

[–] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Wtf thats completely valid

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[–] klisurovi4@midwest.social 31 points 1 year ago

I never liked afternoon naps as a kid, so I brought some Tom & Jerry comic books to read during nap time at kindergarten. The teacher told me that everyone has to take a nap, took my comic books and never returned them. I'm now 25 years old and still salty about that.

[–] peter@feddit.uk 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When I was about 13 I was spending a lot of my lunchtimes in the library working on programming a game. One day I logged on and saw all my code had been deleted. I assumed I'd done it by accident and pulled the latest copy from git. The next day I was called into the assistant head's office because "games are not allowed on school computers". He then for some reason told me that the graphics I'd made myself were bad and that my game was buggy and that if I continued to do that in school I would be suspended. He did, however, say that I could do it at the computer club which was on every Thursday night. Great, except there was no computer club.

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[–] ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)

First year of high school we had a creative writing assignment for English class. The idea was we all wrote a short story about anything at all. I decided I'd write something comedic.

It was about a guy who studied hard for a big test and then on his way to the test one thing after another delays him and the things get more ridiculous as the story goes on. Once he finally makes it to the place just on time he's told the test is actually the next day.

The teacher then asked me to stay after class so she could tell me my story was stupid, I'm not funny, and I should never try comedy again. Talk about inspiring creativity!

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[–] remus989@sh.itjust.works 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Had a teacher tell me my father was in hell because he lost his battle with mental illness. Catholic school was scarring.

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[–] alokir@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I had an art teacher when I was around 12 years old who hated my guts. I wasn't the most well behaved student but the things she did was sometimes petty other times aggressive.

She once threw a water bottle at me because I had a chat with the guy next to me. She missed but the bottle damaged the wall next to me.

She told my girlfriend to stay after class because she wants to talk to her. She spent 10 minutes trying to get her to break up with me.

She never failed to tell me that I'm a good for nothing and I'll probably end up as a homeless drunk and I'll live beside the road.

She always made fun of my drawings and paintings trying to humiliate me in front of the class.

I wasn't her only target, she had one in every class.

I had a teacher like that, who thought I was a bad influence on my other students. The worst part is that if you do turn out okay, they think that they did a good job by motivating you by being such a dick head. No, you aren't motivating me by being a jerk to me. I motivated myself. You were just an asshole.

[–] M500@lemmy.ml 24 points 1 year ago

Once my science teacher gave me a 98 on the final exam. “Your answer is right, but weeds are plants so you don’t need to write both of these in your answer.” Ok well I’m 12 and writing about what mice eat.

[–] TheGiantKorean@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I gave my kindergarten teacher a love letter when I was 6. Not only did she turn me down, but she also put it up on the board for everyone to see.

[–] nieceandtows@programming.dev 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] TheGiantKorean@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's cool. She lost out. I was quite the catch.

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[–] xkforce@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

School yard monitor used to punish me any time I fought back (verbally) against the students that tormented me for years. Apparently them pulling my pants down, surrounding and attacking me was fine though. Eventually had enough, waited until one of them got too close and decked them. No punishment and the bullying stopped. What a lesson to teach children Ms. Mcbride you evil bitch.

[–] stinodes@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago (3 children)

3rd year in highschool a teacher pulled down my pants in the (very crowded) hallways to shame me

[–] radix@lemm.ee 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's got to be sexual assault or something. You were 16 or so...

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[–] orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Had an anatomy teacher in high school that only gave a shit about students that did well. Everyone had a partner in the class so that no one had to dissect things or do projects alone. It was nice and helped a ton.

Part of the way into the year and my partner transfers out of the class. So now anything I worked on meant I fell behind by default because it was one pair of hands vs two doing the work. I was already struggling a bit in the class but when I was partnerless, my grade was basically in free fall.

I expressed that I was struggling to the teacher and then to my parents. We had a conference with the teacher and, this is the worst part for me, he said I was doing perfectly fine. He was not willing to even face the fact that one of his students wanted to do well but needed the extra help. He straight up lied about my performance, when I had the lowest grade in the class. Absolutely refused to acknowledge the problem so that he didn’t have to contribute anything extra. Even saying “hey, you might want to look into a tutor” would’ve helped, but nope. This dude offered nothing. Even my parents were taken aback by it.

I ended up transferring to another school entirely. On my last day, I basically had to go like it was a regular school day so that I could get my transfer paper signed by each teacher. When I got to the anatomy class, I asked the teacher to sign it, he did, I said absolutely nothing and walked out of the class. Not going to sit there and endure that insufferable twat any longer than I had to.

The shitty part is that I loved anatomy and biology. In my previous biology class, I regularly got the highest test grades and could name all of the various animal organs by heart. I was also an ADHD kid (and now an ADHD adult) that didn’t get anything of value from most traditional learning methods. So that teacher’s absolute shutdown was more of a blow to my self-esteem and willingness to give a fuck about school than he realized.

[–] nitefox@sh.itjust.works 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It was my final exam. Everyone , including the president (or whatever it’s called), but one said I was great and all, and we were chilling talking about my future. I said I wanted to get a CS degree, to which my math teacher replied with “People like you can only be good as carpenters”

EDIT: just to point out, I got the highest grade lol

[–] PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

people like you can only be good as carpenters

This reminds me of that meme like "teachers will tell you that yiu don't want to end up collecting trash but won't tell you that the trash collector makes more than they do."

[–] morriscox@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I got bullied in the locker room and used a padlock to try to defend myself. I got in trouble for using a "weapon" and had to apologize to my attackers.

[–] CADmonkey@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

I had a similar incident, with similar results. One thing I noticed though, is that my parents wetent mad, and more importantly, a sweaty sock with a master lock in it will shut down a bully faster than anything the school ever did.

[–] gonzo0815@sh.itjust.works 20 points 1 year ago

Choked me, but no one believes a 9-year old anyways so nothing happened.

[–] Kushia@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My classroom had this weird hidden "library" at the back of it and various teachers would randomly take students to the back of it under the pretext of performing "health checks" that really were them just taking us there and raping us. Mostly a few specific male teachers including the principal and my female teacher as well. One time I was selected to undergo a health check and refused and the teacher slapped me so hard across the face I fell out of my chair and hit the ground. This was in like second grade too so we were pretty young.

That school has been shut down and the buildings leveled now. No idea if anyone was ever persecuted over it though.

[–] michaelrose@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)
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[–] ruckblack@sh.itjust.works 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh another one, when I was 8 or 9 one of the first grade teachers threatened me with expulsion for making a fart sound in the hallway. Cried for hours, the wicked bitch. She's dead now though!

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[–] deranger@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

All of my art teachers giving me shit grades / relentless criticism from kindergarten on, which gave me life long issues with typical creative activities.

To this day I can’t enjoy drawing, painting, models, etc. I can’t figure out what made teachers be dicks to me when I was just 6-7 years old. I’ve gotten around it with more technical creative things like photography, but I still have very negative feelings towards most other creative things. Why even try if it’s just going to result in people letting me know it’s bad?

[–] DeriHunter@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

My high school teacher never liked me and most of the time she ignored me and the times she didn't, looked at me like I'm a loser.

I didn't do very well on the big exams (similar to sat) and after few tears I served in the army, I did some courses to raise my grades.

These exams happen to be in my high school with all the 12th graders, and so I was sitting there and waiting for the exam to start and then I saw her peaking from the door after years I didn't see her.

She got in and called my name with a huge smile on her face saying "I knew I would see you here some day".

I'll never forgot this mean smile and I have to say, this smile really helped me on hard times at the university. It kept me motivated.

This was 13 years ago and today I have a bs.c. In computer science and working at as technical team lead in a big software company, managing engineers.

I sometimes remembering this and smile to myself. I don't think she knows what I'm doing today, but the fact that I know I made it, gives me comfort

[–] undeffeined@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

From grades 1 to 4 (6 to 9 years of age) we had the same teacher. She was fine for the first 3 years but somthing must have happened because during the last year she completely changed.

That last year is still burned in my mind. She would verbally and physically assault us at the minimum mistake. For example, when she was delivering tests she had us go to her to pick it up and the ones with average or bad grades would get a knuckle punch to the forehead (it hurt like hell).

Slapping was common occurance, as in several times a day. She also once broke a plastic ruler on a girls head for speaking out of turn and banged another girls head onto the blackboard several times because she was writing with too small letters.

One of the worst things I recall involved the special needs kid. I don't remember what condition he had, just that he had no understanding of social rules and also had trouble reading. One day this kid decides to climb on the toilet and look at a girl that was peeing (the closed toilets to the classroom were unisex). The girl came crying to the teacher and she proceeded to grab the kid by the ear and twisted it hard. While he was crying is hear out, she pulled down his pants and underwear and slapped his ass several times. He was quite never the same after that...

The worst part? Telling my parents about this and them thinking I was crazy because there was no way a teacher would behave like this.

Luckly that was the last year and I moved to another school but the memories remain.

If you're still alive, fuck you Lena.

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[–] clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 year ago

I was reading a book in class, and after finishing it my Earth Sciences teacher asked to read it. He never gave it back and swore for years I never lent it to him. It was a book one of a series that my dad had given me.

Princess of Mars, book 1 of Edgar Rice Borroughs's Barsoom series. The edition from the 70s. I just recently found new copy of the missing book at the used bookstore so I could complete my shelf.

My kids know this teacher's name, and call him my nemesis.

[–] getoffthedrugsdude@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

My 9th grade geometry teacher offered me a passing grade if he could take me home.

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[–] grabyourmotherskeys@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

I had a teacher accuse me on front of the entire class (university) of helping the guy who say behind me cheating from my test. He used the word "collusion".

I had words with the guy who had in fact cheated off me after class, outside. He told the prof I didn't help him. I also made it clear he shouldn't sit behind me in front of everyone at the next class.

The prof had it in for me because he completely screwed up the time period of this sort story and I was able to explain why because of a song and artist specifically mentioned for that purpose by the author.

It stands out because he accused me of cheating in front of everyone. I was 25 years old at the time, used to working with people who would literally fight you for impuning their character like that, and it just really made me angry. I'm pretty chill most of the time.

[–] i_am_not_a_robot@feddit.uk 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Primary school 4th year (as it was called then). Teacher had some items/words and asked what they had in common (can't remember the exact phrasing), anyway it was things like triangle, tricycle, triceratops. I usually kept quiet even if I knew the answer, but this time nobody spoke up and I was feeling unusually confident. "Tri", I said. The teacher wrote "try" on the board and basically humiliated me. "Anyone else?" I think there was one other answer, and then somebody else said "tri" (or maybe they were clearer and said "they all start with tri"). Anyway, they got congratulated and my protests that that was what I said went completely unheard.

I mean, if you know the answer is "tri", why would you hear and write "try". This incident probably knocked my confidence and made me even more shy of sticking my hand up than I already was.

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[–] Letstakealook@lemm.ee 14 points 1 year ago

My senior year I took mostly AP courses and there were these two "nerd" bullies, Noah and Cory, that loved to target me because Noah's mom (a teacher) made sure he knew I was on the spectrum. These two guys were physically weak, but their parents protected their mouths from fists. I remember one of them intentionally caused a collision with my vehicle in the parking lot, then lied, and I got the ticket because of who Cory's dad was. The AP English teacher really disliked me for whatever reason as well and would encourage these two to come after me in class, sometimes he'd even join in.

There were many incidents with this teacher's bullying, but one really sticks out to me. Towards the end of the year, I was sitting in the back of class minding my business and reading. A group of kids, including the two bullies, were at the teacher's desk talking to him about what colleges they planned to attend. Out of nowhere, the teacher yells "Hey (me)! What college are you attending? Alcatraz University?" Of course the two assholes erupt in the loudest laughter and the rest of the class follows suit. Not only was it moronic, it was completely unprompted.

Fuck you, Noah and Cory. But a special fuck you for Mr. Betscher.

[–] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Mans gave me hell for needing accomodations, like I would have been in my rights to open a civil rights suit against the school for it.

Luckily the resolution was allowing me to earn the req by taking a climate risk assessment course.

BTW, same guy returned the first exam lecturing the class about how it was the single worst class score he had seen in his 20+ years of teaching, as if that wasn't a condemnation of how he was doing his job.

[–] BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

I was 12 or so, rather depressed, in a new school which was crappy, and dealing with a difficult home life with my mother who has BPD, and I was doodling shitty things in my notebook in class, I didn't feel like I had many friends so I wrote stuff like "Anna looks like a poodle with her perm" and 'Jennifer looks like a banana in her yellow jacket", just petty stuff but it was getting me through a bad day. The art teacher noticed me writing, took it away from me, and read it out loud to the entire class. I literally had zero friends after that. It was a pretty harmless thing for me to do and I was just trying to blow off a bad mood, obviously,, but she decided to wreck my life out of spite.

I wasn't right to do that, don't get me wrong, but I was just a kid and didn't deserve public humiliation for simply getting some feelings on paper.

[–] shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago

I have a past teacher who took a Gameboy Micro away from me because I played it during school. It still sits somewhere in her desk.

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